The Potter Twins and the Order of the Phoenix
by GryffindorGirl347
Summary: It is Harry and Emily's fifth year at Hogwarts! With Voldemort's return and Umbridge working at the school, the Potter twins find themselves facing many difficulties that they hadn't imagined before. Sequel.
1. Back With the Dursleys

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 1**

Although it would seem normal for a person to be sitting inside on this particularly hot day in the summer, I found myself sitting in the small backyard that belonged to my terrible aunt and uncle. Right now, I would give anything in the world to just return to the world where I belonged: the wizarding world. Instead, I was swinging back and forth on a small, wooden swing that sat in the corner of my aunt and uncle's backyard. How fantastic.

My twin brother, Harry, had found solitude sitting in front of the house next to the open window so that he could listen to the Muggle news that Uncle Vernon had turned on. However, it wasn't the Muggle news that Harry was interested in. Ever since we had been sent back into the Muggle world this summer, both of us had taken turns listening to the news to see if there were any signs of disorder that happened that was most likely the cause of the rise of Lord Voldemort. Of course, we couldn't just listen like normal people though, we had to make it out into a secret because every time the Dursleys caught us watching the news, they started to get suspicious and would send us out of the room.

It isn't like the Muggle news reporters would come out and say that it was the work of a dark wizard, most likely because they didn't know this themselves. Normally, we would hear some news that came out as random and unexplainable that we knew to be Voldemort's work.

Today it was Harry's turn to listen to the news.

While he sat in the front yard, I swung back and forth in the back yard, just looking up into the sky and around the yard, not really paying attention to much of anything to be honest. The only thing that seemed to be running through my mind was what I could be doing right now if I wasn't trapped inside of the Dursley's home for the summer. Why did Dumbledore insist that we remain here? Wouldn't we be more useful if we were around other witches and wizards?

Suddenly, just when I thought that things were remaining far too normal for Privet Drive, a black and white owl flew down into my lap with a few letters attached to its feet. Unfortunately, owls don't go unnoticed on Privet Drive. Something about them flying around during the day time seemed to tip people off that something was happening out of the ordinary. It just so happened that our neighbor, Mrs. Olive, happened to be watering her garden at this particular moment and, upon catching a glance at me, noticed Hoot who happened to be sitting on my lap.

"Oh my - is that an owl?" Mrs. Olive asked.

"It appears to be," I said.

"Why, what's it doing sitting on your lap?" she asked. "That's odd behavior for an owl!"

I was about to open my mouth again to tell her just how odd that it was, when Aunt Petunia came running out of the house and began to shoo away my owl. Even though I wanted to tell her to knock it off, I figured that it wouldn't really matter much at the moment considering that she was covering up for my odd, witch-like behavior so that her neighbor wouldn't get suspicious. Not that it really mattered what she thought of me considering that the Dursleys had been so kind to tell all of the neighbors that knew who we were that we had been sent off to a correctional facility. In other words, they already thought that I was a mess, so how exactly was an owl acting kind towards me really going to change their opinions? The only downfall was that Hoot was now angry, so I would probably have to give her some extra treats for this…

"What do you think you're doing Emily?" Aunt Petunia asked quickly and under her breath.

"It isn't my fault that she saw," I muttered.

"Hello Petunia," Mrs. Olive said cheerfully while also looking a bit skeptical. "Did you see that owl? It just landed in your niece's lap!"

"Strange, isn't it?" Aunt Petunia said nervously. "She probably had a bit of crumbs with her, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," I said bitterly. "Unless you can think of another reason that an owl would want to come near me."

Aunt Petunia looked down at me in my swing with a look that told me that I needed to watch it. What did it matter anyway? The Muggles around here aren't exactly the brightest of people. Not to mention that they wouldn't know what I was talking about anyway - Harry and I were the only witch and wizard around, how would they even begin to fathom what we were?

"It's hot out here - go inside now," she ordered me.

I shrugged and figured that it couldn't hurt to go inside. I'm sure that the news was probably coming to an end anyway and I could ask Harry if anything strange had happened. There's no doubt that there were some disappearances recently, those had been the cases recently anyway. The Muggles just thought that these were random, mysterious happening, but Harry and I knew better than that.

Just as I crossed the threshold of the door, I heard an alarming crack that sounded from the other side of the house. Could that have been Harry? I quickly raced through the house and out through the front door to see what was going on. However, I wasn't the only one who heard the sound.

"What's going on Potter?" Uncle Vernon roared out of the open window in the front yard.

As soon as he poked his head out of the window, he drew back immediately when he caught sight of Harry sitting, now standing, just beside the window in the garden. Great, we're going to have to find another spot now…

"Harry - what happened?" I asked quickly.

"I'm not sure…" he said while looking around frantically.

For a moment, it didn't register to me just what Harry was holding in his hand because I had seen him with his wand in hand so many times before, but it didn't take me a second to know what Uncle Vernon was freaking out about.

"Put that bloody thing away before someone sees it!" Uncle Vernon snarled quickly.

For a moment, the two of them wrestled with each other, Uncle Vernon attempting to get the wand from Harry's hand to keep any of the Muggles from seeing it, but after a moment, Harry had it back in his grasp and quickly put it back into his pocket and out of sight.

"What do you think you're doing boy?" Uncle Vernon snarled.

"No one saw my wand - it doesn't matter," Harry muttered and looked back around the street.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Uncle Vernon said angrily. "What was that noise?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "It wasn't me."

Uncle Vernon shot a look my way as if to blame me, but I honestly have no idea how he could have possible assumed that the noise had been something that I had done. Besides, if it were me, I would be quick to take the credit just to annoy him anyway. It wasn't either of us and we knew that it wasn't just any normal noise to hear.

"I wasn't even over hear," I said, not even bother trying to hide my annoyance. "I was just in the backyard, so don't even try to blame me."

He didn't believe either of us. Anything that happens in this neighborhood that is out of the ordinary is often considered our fault just because we weren't the same as anyone on this street. In their opinions, which we heard quite often, we were freaks. Not that I cared, I would rather be what they considered a freak than anything else.

"The two of you are up to something," he said. "Boy - what do you think you were doing - sitting under the window, a bit suspicious, eh?"

"I was listening to the news," Harry said bluntly.

"Why do we constantly catch you both watching the news?" Uncle Vernon asked while looking from one to the other. "It's not like there is anything from…your kind on here."

"That's what you think," I muttered.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Don't you worry yourself about that," I said.

He narrowed his eyes at both of us before he spoke up again.

"Don't think I don't see what you two are doing," he said threateningly. "I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Harry muttered.

Doubting that Uncle Vernon had actually heard what he had said, Harry made his way through the garden and towards where I was standing. He lowered his voice and quickly told me what the plan was.

"Listen, you stay here and distract them," he whispered. "I'm going to go see if I can find whatever made that noise - understand?"

I nodded in agreement and walked back into the house. Normally, it was difficult to separate us during the summer months because we believed it was easier to deal with the Dursleys as a pair. However, this summer we decided to use a new tactic. Recently, when the two of us were together, the Dursleys would never allow us to go anywhere without being followed because they thought we were being our normal "freakish" selves - it was their belief that we were coming up with a plot to terrorize the "normal" people of the neighborhood. So, we decided that it was best to always keep one of us back at the house to keep them distracted while the other could roam around and try to see if there was anything odd going on - that or we were just bored and wished for a walk.

"Where is your brother going?" Uncle Vernon asked quickly as he noticed that I was the only one walking in the house.

"He decided that it was best if we turn all of the children of the town into toads," I said.

"Don't get smart," Uncle Vernon said.

"You make it too easy for me," I said under my breath.

I walked over and sat down to watch the end of the news with Uncle Vernon, but it turned out that it was only the weatherman giving us the week's forecast. It was going to be hot all week long - how wonderful. After a minute or so, Aunt Petunia returned to the house and looked into the living room where I was sitting and quickly came up with something for me to do so that I wouldn't get to watch the news - not even the weather. Who knows, maybe that would give me a hint about the wizarding world (NOT!).

"Emily - go make some lemonade," she said. "Now - before Dudley gets home."

"Yes, we wouldn't want him to be a bit parched now, would we?" I said in a mockingly cheerful voice.

In the kitchen, I quickly pulled out a few lemons and some sugar before I started squeezing them. Of course Aunt Petunia couldn't by the artificial kind that was much easier and faster to make. We wouldn't want Dudleykins to have low quality now. As I squeezed some lemons, I really wished that I could use magic…this would go so much faster.

Once I was finished, Aunt Petunia walked in to test it to see if I had made it just right for her son. It had to be the perfect refreshment for someone that just finished terrorizing the little children of the neighborhood - oh, I mean "going out for tea" like he claims to be doing.

"Just a bit more sugar," she said after a moment.

Tired of arguing, I just added some more sugar to the pitcher and set it out on the table. Then, feeling that I was given too much free time now, Aunt Petunia requested that I also make some cookies so that her son wouldn't become too hungry. Yes, because he's really going to starve the way he's going…

I need to get out of here…

Oddly enough, Aunt Petunia actually began to help me with this task. It was really strange that she would do this because she usually just made me do everything by myself to make sure that I didn't finish too early. We didn't talk at all for a while, but after the second batch was completed, she said something to me, which was a shock because it wasn't at all rude like it usually was.

"You know…" she said while taking the cookies off of one sheet. "I used to make cookies with your mother during the summer…"

I nearly dropped the plate that I was holding when she said this. Never in my life here with the Dursleys had she ever voluntarily talked about the life she had with my mother. Even though this was some insignificant fact about her childhood, it was alien coming from her mouth.

"…really?" I asked after a moment.

"Yes…" she said with a small smile. "Whenever one of us was a bit off…we would always start to bake cookies to cheer us up…"

Because I was caught off guard with this sudden talk of my mother, I really didn't know what to say to her. This was probably the golden opportunity for me to ask her about my mother, but I felt like my mind had suddenly been wiped clean and I couldn't think right. Nothing that Aunt Petunia ever said to me had ever been related to my mother nor had it ever been something that could possibly strike up a positive conversation.

When she looked up at me, I saw a flicker of sadness on her face that I hadn't really noticed before. It's odd because it sort of reminded me of the look that I often saw flash across Snape's face whenever he saw me. That was probably just a coincidence I guess…

"You remind me a lot of her, you know…?" she said quietly.

"I-I do?" I asked, still shocked that she was trying to have a civil conversation.

"Yes…do you…do you remember her at all?" she asked.

"No, not really," I said.

She nodded as she put the last cookie down on the plate and wouldn't look me in the eyes. It was really strange to me that she would say that I reminded her of my mother - not that it was the first time that I had heard that from anyone or anything. It was just weird to me because of how badly she had always treated me. If I reminded her so much of my mother, then why would she treat me like I was something that she found on a dirty street? Wouldn't it be the other way around - wouldn't you think that she would treat me better knowing that I was so much like someone that she grew up with?

Then again, from what Aunt Petunia had said when she found out that Harry and I were magical, she appeared to have been very jealous of my mother. Was that why she treated us so badly? Maybe it wasn't all about us being so called "freaks" to her, maybe she was treating us the way she did because she had been so envious of our mother.

"No, I guess that you wouldn't remember her…" Aunt Petunia said. "You were…far too young I suppose…"

After that, there wasn't any more talk about my mother. Although you could still see that I wasn't exactly her favorite person, she seemed to be acting a little bit kinder to me after that. I wonder where this sudden realization came from. Maybe it had to do with what she had mentioned about her making cookies with my mother when they were younger. It probably only sparked up a good memory. I wonder how long this was going to last.

When we finished up making the cookies and cleaning up the dishes, I noticed just how dark it had gotten outside. Where was Harry? Normally he wouldn't stay out too long because he didn't feel that it was right to leave me with the Dursleys too long, so what was holding him up? Not only was Harry missing, but it was obvious by the untouched plate of cookies that Dudley hadn't been back either. Even though it was normal for Dudley to be out for several hours of the day, he usually did show up before it was too late so he wouldn't get his parents suspicious about his behavior - not that they would believe that he was up to anything anyway, not their Dudleykins!

When I went into the living room with Uncle Vernon, I kept looking out of the window to see if there was any sign of either Harry or Dudley coming to the door. After a few minutes of that, Uncle Vernon sent me out of the room because I was annoying him with all this "paranoid nonsense" and what not.

When I was sent out, I headed up to my room and sat on my bed. From there, I got a better view of the street and they were nowhere in view. What was holding them up? This wasn't like Harry. Could he have found the source of the noise and got into some sort of trouble? Then again, this was Privet Drive. Nothing ever happened here, so he was probably just wandering around or something.

When I felt a nibble on the side of my arm, I realized that I wasn't the only one in our room. Hoot was sitting next to me with all of the letters that I had seen earlier that day and I decided that now was as good of a time as I was going to get to open them. It would probably be better than sitting there worrying about my unaccounted for brother. Even though I was trying to convince myself that he was okay, something just seemed a bit off. It was probably just paranoia...

After handing over some extra treats for Hoot, who appeared to be a bit angry at me for what had happened earlier with Aunt Petunia, I took the letters and began to open each of them individually.

The first letter, judging by the untidy scrawl on the envelope, appeared to be from my boyfriend George. Hopefully he would have more to say than his last letter that hardly contained anything but a few sentences that didn't make too much sense. I had this weird feeling that he was trying to keep something from me and he wasn't the only one. Ron and Hermione's letters had also become short and unimportant as well.

Emily,

You really shouldn't get so worked up. You know that I can't give away too much information through letters in case they get intercepted. It really isn't my fault - I've already sworn to Dumbledore, and so has everyone else for that matter, that we wouldn't say anything to either of you until we see you in person. Please don't be angry!

The joke shop is coming along wonderfully by the way. Since we've bought the place in Diagon Alley, we've made so many tweaks and it looks awesome! I can't wait for you to see it because I know that you'll love it! Besides, I think you'll be interested in seeing some of the last minute products that we've come up with. I can't wait to see you, love!

Love,

George

I could kill him - honestly. Ever since the summer began, I've been trying to get some sort of clue from him, but nothing is working. He refuses to budge. I would have thought he could have given me some sort of clue by now, but it was just the same as always. "We can't say anything just yet." If I read that line one more time, I'm pretty sure I was going to freak out.

Tossing that letter aside, I picked up a new one. This one had slightly neater handwriting, but it still appeared to be the work of a boy (no offense).

Emily,

I'm sure that it isn't easy for you, but they probably aren't telling you anything because they are afraid of the owl being intercepted. I would imagine that it would be really dangerous if it was really important information that got leaked out. Just try to be patient, I'm sure you'll figure out what they're up to soon enough.

By the way, you mentioned during the school year that you were interested in meeting my parents and I thought you should know that Gran's going to be taking me to see them before the school year starts. If you still want to go, just tell me and we can meet up somewhere. If not, don't worry - I understand.

Much love,

Neville

Before I moved on to the final letter, I made a mental note to reply as soon as I could to him. I really and truly did want to meet Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom no matter what condition they may be in. The final note that I opened had hand writing very different from the other two. It had a certain familiar elegance to it that I loved so much.

Emily,

You must not worry yourself what happens over here. Obviously, as I am sure that you have already heard, we have all been sworn to secrecy and I must not reveal any information. The only thing that you need to know right now is that we are all safe and looking out for you. I apologize with the utmost sincerity and I look forward to seeing you again.

Love,

Severus

P.S. Are the Dursleys mistreating you in anyway? If they are, then I assure you that are meeting will come sooner than expected.

I rolled my eyes and pulled out a few pieces of parchment to respond. To George, I only had to say that I was upset that he couldn't tell me anything and that I looked forward to seeing his shop soon. To Neville, I told him that I would love nothing more than to meet his parents this summer and I thought it would be best if we met at the Leaky Cauldron or someplace like that. Lastly, I told Snape that I wanted to kick him for keeping things from me and that the Dursleys were being unusually civil towards us recently.

Once I sent Hoot out, I glanced out of the window again. No one was there still. When I checked the clock next to my bed, I seriously began to worry. Harry should not be out this late and it was bothering me. Just as I was about to walk away from my window, I caught sight of a few people walking not too far away from number 4 Privet Drive. When I moved closer to the window, I could make out that there were three people walking by because of the street lamps. However, they weren't bright enough for me to see who they were. All I could tell was that the one smaller boy appeared to be dragging the much larger boy as a smaller figure walked next to them.

As they walked closer, I saw the face of my brother illuminated by the street lamps. He was dragging Dudley along the sidewalk. What was going on?

Before I had another thought, I quickly made my way down the steps and towards the front door. Ignoring the Dursleys' alarm from my sudden appearance, I opened the door and walked outside as fast as I could. Something was wrong, I should have known! However, it seemed that Dudley, who appeared to be sick and traumatized, was the one that had somewhat wrong with him.

"Harry, what's going on?" I asked once they were stepping into the front yard. "Oh - hello Ms. Figg..."

What was she doing there? It was a rare occasion that I actually saw her, but she seemed to be out of her element. It wasn't that she didn't have any cats with her, but it seemed like she was far too alert for her usual calm, crazy-cat-lady self.

"Both of you need to stay here until further instruction - do you understand?" she asked.

"I suppose so," Harry said at the same time that I said, "No, what are you talking about?"

Just as I was about to ask what was going on, the Dursleys were hurrying out of the door and Mrs. Figg was scurrying away from us. When I turned back to everyone, they were already making their way through the front door in a sort of panic - mostly because of Dudley's state. Once the door was closed behind us all, I quickly got Harry's attention.

"Harry, can you please tell me what happened," I said desperately.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia stopped panicking long enough to listen to what Harry had to say for an explanation. What I heard wasn't something that I would even have guessed - especially in Little Whinging.

"Dementors."

* * *

**Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of the Order of the Pheonix! Just so you all know, I'll probably have the next chapter up by Tuesday or Wednesday (EST) so that I can put more work into it. I hope you don't mind. These chapters will probably be longer because I don't want to have a million chapters for this story.**

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	2. Dementors in Little Whinging?

**Disclaimer: No, I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 2**

"Dementors?" I asked, completely bewildered. "Are you sure?"

"No, I guess it must have been something else that was trying to rip out our souls Emily," Harry said sarcastically.

After Dudley was set down on the couch with Aunt Petunia to care for him, Uncle Vernon turned on both of us - though it didn't seem very rational considering I wasn't even there.

"What did you do to him?" he snarled as he glared at both of us.

"I've already told you - it wasn't me," Harry said. "It was the dementors - we had nothing to do with it."

Before another word could be said, an owl flew into the house through the open window in the front of the house. Uncle Vernon's face suddenly became incredibly red with anger because of the appearance of such an odd bird in his house. He wasn't the only one that was wondering why it were coming in the house though - I was wanting to ask the very same thing.

"Enough with the bloody owls!" Uncle Vernon burst out. "What is wrong with Dudley?"

Ignoring our uncle completely, Harry ripped open each of the letters that were handed to him. Without hesitation, I made my eat over to him and looked around him to see what the letters had to say.

I only had to read the first line of the letter to understand what had happened. There had been dementors, as Harry had told me, and he had decided to use the Patronus Charm according to this letter from the Ministry of Magic. He was in a lot of trouble - this was the second time that magic had been used in front of the Dursleys and it was not allowed at all.

"You've been expelled?" I asked in a choked voice. "That can't be possible - Harry, what's going on?"

"I'm leaving," he said quickly.

Before I said anything else, another owl flew into the house just as Harry was beginning to climb the stairs in only a few quick movements. The only thing that stopped him from walking was the owl that ran right into him, trying to give him another letter.

"HARRY!" I begged.

"One moment," he said irritably as he ripped this letter open.

We all stood in silence as Harry read over the second letter on the stairs. When he finished, he quickly shoved the note into his pocket and began to walk back down the stairs with a look of relief on his face. What had the note said? What was happening?

"Change of plans, I think I'm going to stay here," he said.

Just as confused as I was, the Dursleys began to look at each other to see if the other one understood anything. Of course, I probably had a slightly better idea since I actually knew what a Patronus Charm was, but it wasn't really helping me to figure out what had happened. Obviously, dementors had shown up, but why were they there? What had happened to Dudley? Why was Harry threatened expulsion for doing a spell that I assumed was for his defense?

"What did you do to him?" Uncle Vernon asked Harry angrily.

"I didn't do anything," Harry said. "That was the-"

Surprising everyone, Dudley actually began to speak - something that he hadn't appeared to be capable of since he had stepped through the door. Noting his pale complexion and horrified expression, I believe that I had a slight clue as to what had happened. Of course, the dementors must have attacked Dudley - but why?

"It got cold all of a sudden..." Dudley whimpered. "...and I started hearing things...awful things...I felt like..."

"You could never be happy again?" Harry suggested.

Dudley nodded and looked even more horrified than before. Aunt Petunia, who was clutching onto her son next to him, seemed as though she wanted to cry because if her son's misfortune. Uncle Vernon, on the other hand, looked as though it would make him the happiest man alive to choke the life out of Harry for what he believed he had done to his son.

"Harry, I could really use some catching up right about now," I said.

"Fine, I'll explain," Harry said and sat down on a couch opposite of Dudley and Aunt Petunia. "We were both walking outside when we ran into a couple of dementors. I had to use the Patronus Charm to get them away because they nearly sucked out Dudley's soul and they weren't too far off from getting my own."

Why would they try to get Dudley? He was a Muggle! What did he have to do with anything? That was when I remembered what Dumbledore had told Fudge last year just after Voldemort's return. Voldemort was going to try to get everyone on his side that he could in order to get his way in the world - Voldemort had once had both the dementors and the giants on his side and Dumbledore had mentioned that he believed that he would do the very same thing this time. So, naturally, the dementors were sided with Voldemort so now they were out to get us.

"How did they find us?" I wondered out loud.

"I don't know," Harry sighed. "But the Ministry found out that I used magic - "

"So you admit it!" Uncle Vernon finally burst out. "You did do something to him!"

"He was trying to get the dementors away you blithering idiot!" I shouted. "He saved your son's life - well, I guess his soul if you want to be specific. The dementors would have - "

"What is this rubbish?" Uncle Vernon asked angrily. "How do we know that you aren't just making up these so-called dementors?"

"They aren't making them up - they guard the wizard prison called Azkaban," Aunt Petunia said suddenly.

It took me a moment to realize who it was that had said this. How did Aunt Petunia know what dementors were? Uncle Vernon seemed to be thinking along the same lines as his jaw dropped and Aunt Petunia quickly threw her hands to her mouth in shame. She must not have realized what she had just said.

"Y-yes, that's right," Harry said.

"How did you know that?" I asked in surprise.

"I-I heard that boy telling her about them when we were younger," Aunt Petunia said with her face suddenly red with guilt.

"That boy?" Harry said in disgust. "You can use my mum and dad's names if you're going to talk about them."

Harry did have a point - they did have names and she should use them if she plans on referring to them. However, there was a slightly confused look on her face that I registered on her face that I didn't quite understand. Maybe it had to do with the fact that she was so surprised that she had said something that related to anything in the magical world. I have to admit that it was rather surprising to hear about something like this from her - especially considering the talk that we had earlier about my mother. Maybe that was what made her think of it so suddenly.

Suddenly two more owls flew into the room and went straight towards Harry. Just as they were flying out of the window, a third one burst through and surprisingly came towards me with a note. While Harry went through his, I ripped mine open and read it quickly.

_Emily,_

_Just heard what happened to your brother - make sure that he stays inside of your aunt and uncle's house no matter what happens. We are trying to fix things over at this end. Do not let him leave!_

_Love,_

_Snape_

When I looked back up, I half expected our uncle's head to burst open from how angry he looked. It probably had something to do with creatures linking us, and his house, to the magical world. I couldn't imagine that it would be too pleasant for him to see given his frame of mind. Just when I thought he couldn't get any angrier, another series of owls flew in and handed letters to both Harry and me.

_Emily -_

_Do not let your brother out of the house! This is extremely important and you must do as we say - DO NOT LET HIM LEAVE!_

_Sirius_

The next two had the same message from both Dumbledore and Mr. Weasley. They wanted to make sure that I knew how important it was for me to keep Harry in this house at all costs. I believe that I got the point with the first letter that I received.

"Enough with the bloody owls!" Uncle Vernon shouted.

He shooed the last two owls out of the house and then slammed the windows behind them. His face was red and I believe that I noticed a large vein sticking out of his head because of all of his rage. If it wasn't for me thinking of him as a huge joke, I may have even found this a bit threatening. As Harry finished reading the last of his letters, he stowed the letters into his pockets and then turned his attention to everyone in the room.

"So let me get this straight," Uncle Vernon said shakily. "You're telling me that these...dementors...were here and attacked Dudley - but doesn't that sound a bit off considering they are supposed to be guarding that prison?"

Harry and I looked at each other and in one instant I knew that he was thinking the same thing that I was regarding that.

"He sent them," Harry said while keeping eye contact with me.

"Who?" Uncle Vernon asked.

"Lord Voldemort," I said in a low voice.

"Who is that - wait a minute," Uncle Vernon said. "I've heard that name before. Wasn't he the one that...?"

"Killed our parents," Harry said.

"Yeah, that's the one that did it," I said.

"But he died," Uncle Vernon shook his head. "He died that night, didn't he?"

"He's back," I said without hesitation. "He came back this past year."

"How is that possible?" Uncle Vernon said.

"Too long of a story," I said impatiently. "But he is, that's all that's important."

"And he's coming for us now," Harry said. "Just like last time, he's going to try to kill us."

Everyone in the room was silent aside from a small, frightened whimper from Dudley. It was difficult to decide what was actually going through their minds considering they didn't understand the full gravity of the situation. Even though they didn't know the whole story, it was obvious by the looks on their faces that they knew that Voldemort's return wasn't exactly something to be taken lightly.

"Get out," Uncle Vernon said suddenly. "Now - get out of this house."

Harry and I looked at each other in shock. Even though it wasn't much of a surprise that the Dursleys didn't really want us here, it wasn't exactly what we wanted to hear after being told by a whole crowd of people that the two of us had to stay in this house no matter what. We were then both taken by the shoulders and walked over towards the front door and pushed slightly outside.

Just as the door was about to shut, a final owl zoomed in clutching a red envelope in hand. But why had it gone inside when we were out here? Maybe it was some sort of attempt to get us back into the house. I wonder how they had figured that out...but it was red which meant bad news. It was a Howler.

Through the front window, I watched as the owl landed into Aunt Petunia's lap. The letter was for her? What could that be about? And why was someone angry enough with her to send her a Howler? This was all extremely confusing. Looking worried, she grabbed onto the letter and raced into the kitchen and out of our sight. Uncle Vernon still stood at the door with it half shut looking completely confused.

Then, from the kitchen, I heard an enormous yell that could have been heard all through the neighborhood. Although the voice didn't seem all that familiar, the words that were said couldn't be any clearer as it roared in the kitchen.

"REMEMBER MY LAST PETUNIA!"

Once the short message stopped, silence seemed to fill the area. No one in the house moved as we all gazed towards the kitchen in shock. When Aunt Petunia walked back out, she looked from us to Uncle Vernon, her face was very pale.

"They are staying here Vernon," she said in a hallow voice.

* * *

The next few days were awful a the Dursleys' house and, for once, it wasn't because of the people that were in it. It was because of the fact that both Harry and I had been cut off completely from communication from anyone. Well, I sent a letter to Neville telling him what had happened, but he wasn't involved with everyone that was telling us to stay put.

_Emily,_

_Do you really think that it was him that was involved with sending the dementors? I mean, it makes sense considering he used them before, but how did he know where you were? Do you think that Harry is going to be in a lot of trouble from the Ministry since Dumbledore said he would speak to them? I hope that he can help sort things out because I couldn't imagine Harry never coming back to Hogwarts. I told Gran what happened and she said that he should be okay because he was only using magic to defend your cousin, so as long as they know that then he should be okay, right?_

_Oh, Gran was just asking me if you are going to be coming with us to see my parents. We are going to be going to St. Mungo's on August 12, do you think that you can come? Send the answer in your reply._

_Hope you can go,_

_Love,_

_Neville_

After I read it, I sent back a letter telling him that there shouldn't be a problem with going on that day considering that I didn't exactly have plans elsewhere. When I told Harry what Mrs. Longbottom said, but it didn't really help to lighten his mood at all. I couldn't really blame him much though - I would be in a bad mood too if I was threatened with expulsion.

During those horrible days after the incident with the dementors, Harry stayed inside of his room at all times, aside from when he had to go to the bathroom. He filled me in on every little detail that happened and he grew angrier and angrier every day about the situation. He was getting restless. On the other hand, I tried to maintain my usual schedule around the Dursleys in attempt to figure out if Voldemort was up to anything else. However, I found it very difficult to keep this all from the Dursleys now that I didn't have Harry's participation and ended up just being obvious and uncaring about gathering my information.

"What do you watch the news for?" Uncle Vernon burst out during the second day after the incident.

"For the same reason that you do," I said bluntly. "You know - current events. Something about them, they tend to change over time, maybe you've noticed."

"Don't get smart with me or I'll turn it off," he threatened.

I turned my attention back to the television screen to listen to the all too cheerful news anchor talk about a new school being built nearby. It wasn't all that thrilling and there didn't seem to be any other piece of news that I could even try to relate to the working of Voldemort even if I was to get extremely creative with my thinking.

"What do you think you're going to see on here anyway," Uncle Vernon demanded after the program cut to a commercial about cat food. "The news reporters aren't going to say anything about your crowd on here."

"That's what you think," I said under my breath.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he snarled.

"Well, I hate to tell you, but there is mention of Voldemort's working on here," I said. "Of course, it isn't spelled out for you and I can almost guarantee that not even the newscasters realize that he's involved with these sort of things."

"What are you talking about?" Uncle Vernon snapped. "That doesn't make any sense at all!"

"Haven't you been noticing the large amount of disappearances recently?" I asked. "They aren't random - not at all. Voldemort is targeting people - even Muggles like you. You all may not realize it, but you're affected by him just as much as we are."

Uncle Vernon's mustache twitch and he snorted and turned back to the screen that was now advertising a new type of shampoo. Although he seemed very determined to show me that he didn't believe or fear a word that I said, I could see the subtle look of panic that flashed across his eyes when he knew that he was in as much danger as we were.

Since the incident with the dementors happened, I had been seeing Dudley a lot more frequently than I used to. Seems like they must have scared him away from his usual routine of chasing little children around the playground so he could terrorize them with his friends. Although I did see a lot of my cousin, it seemed like he wasn't much in the mood for making my day miserable either. Actually, he seemed rather depressed and scared with every turn he made and he seemed to be sticking oddly close to me. Not really sure what that was about, to be honest.

On this particular morning, the third day after the attack, I was shocked when Dudley actually took it upon himself to speak to me directly. He was completely silent until his mother and father went out into the garden to do some watering. He wouldn't look me directly in the eye as he poked his fork at a piece of sausage that was on his plate and he seemed rather shaken.

"Do you think that they'll come here?" he asked slowly and almost in a whisper.

For a moment, I was shocked into silence. In my entire life here with the Dursleys, Dudley had rarely if ever tried to strike up a civil conversation with me. Although I do remember him one time when I was about six years old when he spoke to me about a new toy airplane that he had gotten. He went on and on about how he had seen them in programs that he watched then. But that was a long time ago and this time, he was actually the one that was asking the questions and expected me to do the talking.

"What - the dementors?" I asked after the temporary shock wore off.

"Yeah, do you think that they will try to find you here - in this house?" he asked again.

"Honestly, I haven't really thought much about that," I said. "But I doubt that they will at this point. If they planned to come for us again then they probably would have done it by now."

He nodded and then looked outside at his parents that were now talking to the neighbors. He looked back towards me and I could see the sadness in his eyes. Throughout the years, he had always pretended to be upset to get what he wanted with his mother - but I could tell that this was real. He didn't actually start to cry, but I still did pity him a bit. In our third year at Hogwarts, Harry and I had gone through a lot with dementors and I knew that it couldn't be pleasant. However, I couldn't help but wonder what exactly it was that he had heard when the dementors tried to take away his soul.

"What are those things?" he asked while still avoiding eye contact.

"It's like Aunt Petunia said," I told him. "They are guards of the wizar-I mean our crowd's prison. My godfather went there for a while and he said that they would often take away every happy thought that the people had so that they were completely miserable. A lot of them went mad…"

Dudley's eyes widened and he tensed up.

"But…how do you know when they are there?" he asked.

"Well…it gets really cold around and everyone starts to feel a bit down," I said. "Not to mention that they aren't exactly the smallest of creatures - you must have noticed."

"But I didn't see them," Dudley said and looked up at me.

"What do you mean you didn't see them?" I asked. "Harry told me that they came right for the two of you - you had to have seen them."

"There was nothing there," he said quietly.

That didn't make any sense at all. What did he mean that he didn't see them? Harry had given me every detail of their attack and there was no way that he couldn't have seen them. Maybe he had just forgotten or something - maybe he was traumatized to the point that he couldn't remember them properly.

Just as I was about to say something else, Uncle Vernon stepped back into the door and gave us both a look. Obviously he hadn't heard what we were saying, but there was something about the look that he was giving me that told me that I needed to watch it. It wasn't like it was my fault anyway…Dudley was the one that wanted to talk in the first place…

That night, I sat up in my room with Harry when Uncle Vernon knocked on the door to come in. When he saw Harry glaring up at him from his bed, he quickly looked over to me. It was almost amusing that he found me less threatening at this point because I hadn't actually been involved with what had happened to his son the other day.

"We're going to be going out - try not to destroy the house," he said.

"Have fun," Harry said with a tone that suggested the complete opposite.

"Don't touch anything in the house - understand?" he asked.

"We get it," I said. "We've been through this before."

"Well…I'm going to lock you two in here," Uncle Vernon said.

"Wonderful," Harry muttered sarcastically.

He looked from Harry to me and then towards the floor. Then he stepped back and closed the door. We listened as he locked the door shut and walked down the stairs. When I looked out of the window in between our beds, I watched as they drove off in their car.

Neither of us spoke for a while after they left. Harry sat back in his bed and looked up at the ceiling with distaste. He wanted nothing more than be out of this house, to go somewhere where we could know what was going to happen with him. I couldn't blame him in the slightest and I really felt bad for him. This wasn't his fault at all - he wasn't the one that sent the dementors there. But he didn't want to talk. When I tried to, the most he would give me were some grunts that told me that he was listening.

After a moment or so of that, I pulled out a book of potions that Snape had sent over to me when I told him that I had finished my homework for the summer within the first week of being gone. At that point, I was trying everything I could to get my mind off of Voldemort and Cedric and everything else that was going on. It had gotten to the point now that I had a nightmare about them every few days or so as opposed to every night like I had been before - actually, I rarely slept for the first few weeks of staying here.

Just as I finished up another chapter, I was jolted back to reality when I heard a loud crash coming from down below. Harry, who had closed his eyes only moments ago, jumped from his bed and looked towards the door.

"Burglars?" he suggested.

I listened again, but it wasn't silent downstairs. Actually, whoever had broken into the house was being rather loud for someone who didn't want to get caught.

"They seem a bit loud for burglars, don't you think?" I asked after a second.

"They probably think that no one is here…" he whispered as he grabbed for his wand.

I stepped over to my trunk and grabbed my wand as well. Together, we walked on either side of the door and listened to the other side in hopes of getting some sort of idea of what these people wanted.

The footsteps seemed to be moving towards us at a steady pace. I thought that they would continue down the hallway, but they suddenly stopped directly in front of our door.

The lock on the door clicked and suddenly the door to our room flew open to reveal who had broken into the house.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I'm not really sure when the next chapter will be up just yet, but it'll probably be up sometime between Friday and Sunday depending on how much I plan to include in the next chapter. Just check on my Twitter or Tumblr page (or you can favorite this story and it'll send you an e-mail).**

**Tell me what you think of the second chapter and if you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to add that in as well!**


	3. The Guard and the Order

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 3**

"Professor Moody?" Harry asked in surprise.

"I'm not your professor anymore boy," Moody growled. "Now both of you get out of there so we can all see you properly."

Harry and I looked at each other and stepped out of the door slowly - neither of us letting our guard down because we weren't entirely sure of what was going to be on the other side. Once we were out, I could make out that there were several people standing around in the dark, some that I didn't recognize, but one in particular that I remembered clearly.

"Lupin?" Harry asked and stepped forward. "Is that you?"

"Hello Harry," Lupin smiled as he walked forward into the light. "Emily - how are you?"

"I'm…fine, I suppose," I said nervously looking around at everyone.

The rest of the people there, which only turned out to be six more people, stepped into view and lit their wands up so that we could all see properly instead of standing around in the dark.

"Wow…they look just like them…" the girl with short, spiky, violet hair said while looking from Harry to me.

"He looks just like James…except for those eyes…" said a bald, black man with a deep voice.

"She looks just like Lily…" a wheezing man towards the back of the group said. "Could be her twin…"

It felt like we were exhibits at a museum while they stood looking at us. To be honest, it was a bit awkward because of how intently they were staring at us. I would give anything to crawl into a hole so that they would stop.

"Well, we better be off," Moody growled. "I don't like it here - the place is crawling with Muggles…"

"What do you have against Muggles?" someone piped up.

"They're just…nosy…" Moody said as he looked around the Dursley's house nervously. "But before we go, we have to make sure that it really is them."

"Well of course it's them Alastor," Lupin said.

"I'm just making sure…" Moody muttered. "We need to ask them something that only the real ones would know."

Harry and I looked at one another and then back at the crowd. It was amazing how paranoid everyone had gotten. Then again, this was Mad-Eye Moody that was demanding that we have proof of our identities. Everyone had said that he had been a paranoid person for a long time and I couldn't imagine that his experience at the school last year helped him out at all.

"Okay fine," Lupin said. "What do your Patronus' take the form of?"

"A stag," Harry said just as I said, "A phoenix."

Lupin nodded and Moody grunted in recognition. There really weren't many people that knew what our Patronus' looked like, so I could imagine that it was a legitimate answer for them.

"A Phoenix?" the violet haired woman asked. "How interesting…"

"Isn't that the same one that Dumbledore has?" someone else asked.

"It is," Lupin nodded.

"I have the same Patronus as Dumbledore?" I asked, completely amazed.

"Well, they look a bit different if you look at them both," Lupin nodded. "But yes, you both have a phoenix."

It had never occurred to me before that people could have a similar Patronus to someone else. Then again, I had never really sat back and thought about it before. I wonder what Dumbledore's looked like in comparison to mine though…

"Oh, well I do believe some introductions are in order," Lupin said and stood out of the way of everyone. "You recognize Alastor Moody from school, I would imagine -" Moody nodded his head and looked around the room suspiciously once more " - and this is Nymphadora Tonks -"

"Just call me Tonks," the woman with the short, violet hair spoke up.

"Okay, Tonks then," Lupin continued. "And this is Kingsley Shacklebolt - " the tall, black man with the deep voiced bowed in greeting " - and Elphias Doge - " the wheezing man smiled, " - Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore, and Hestia Jones."

The last few people came up and shook our hands and smiled in greeting, all looking both interested and intimidated at the same time. We stood around awkwardly looking at one another before Moody spoke up again, apparently done with his searching around.

"Let's go then," Moody growled. "Go get your things Potter…"

We nodded and quickly raced back to our bedroom that was only a few feet away. It didn't occur to me that we didn't actually know where we were going until all of our things were packed away in our trunks and we were walking towards the back door.

"Where are we-?" I started.

"We've set up a place that's undetectable," Moody said. "Just keep quiet, don't want to wake the Muggles around here…you two are good fliers I hope, because that's how we're getting there."

"Harry's good," I said. "He flies all of the time - I'm not completely awful, but I don't have my own broom."

"That's okay, I brought you a spare one," Lupin smiled and handed me one of the two that he was holding.

"Okay, we are all going to be flying in a tight formation," Moody announced as we mounted our broomsticks. "Harry and Emily, you two are to be flying next to each other at all times - try to keep up with him girl - you're both to be keeping closely behind Tonks. Lupin will be flying underneath you both and I'll be close behind - the rest of the group will be circling around us - are we clear?"

We all nodded and I looked over at Harry, who I assumed would be taking off. I had to admit that I was a bit nervous having to keep up with my brother. It was very rare for me to ever be on a broom. The only times that I could ever actually flying were during our lessons in first year and once when Harry had first gotten his Firebolt because Ron insisted that I go on it. It wasn't that I was a terrible flier, but there was no way that it was going to be easy keeping up with Harry since he played Quidditch.

"Okay, let's go!" Moody ordered.

Within seconds, we were up in the air in the formation that Moody had told us to be in. It was obvious that Harry wasn't flying as quickly as usual because, not only did he have to stay behind Tonk's slower broom, but he also had to stick with me. It took a few minutes to actually get the hang of flying, but eventually I was able to stay in a straight line, but it was obvious that I was no expert on this.

After I had actually gotten the hang of flying, I realized just how cold it was this far in the air. When I looked down, I noticed just how high we had flown because of how little the houses and lights appeared from this distance.

"Emily - look where you're going!" Harry called to me.

When I looked back up, Harry was several feet above me and I quickly adjusted my broom so that I would be flying next to me. Apparently, while I was looking down at the ground, I had flown slightly off course because of the distraction.

"Sorry," I called back to Harry.

For the remainder of the flight, we all stayed silent for the most part. The only person that seemed to be saying anything was Moody when he shouted out directions for Tonks to go in. Finally, after what seemed like a century of flying through the freezing cold air, we were told to start our decent.

"Be careful Emily!" Harry called over to me.

"I know, I know!" I shouted back.

Naturally, Harry was worried that I was going to crash land. I'm not entirely sure why he did this because I had never actually landed like that. Well, one time during practice I had come to a slightly rough stop, but I never fell…

When we finally made it to the ground, I had to stop a few feet after Harry because I had been going too fast, but I quickly walked backed towards everyone else who was looking around the place where we had landed. It appeared to be a sketchy little neighborhood that had a few light posts set up around it. Other than these light posts, the place appeared to be pitch black.

"Where are we?" I whispered.

"Just wait a moment," Kingsley said quietly.

In the moonlight, I made out Mad-Eye limping over to us with something held in his hand. He handed it to Harry and then held out his wand so that we could see what it was.

"Read that and memorize it," Moody growled.

On the parchment, I read the words _The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London. _What was that supposed to mean?

"What is the Order-?" Harry started.

"Not out here boy," Moody warned quickly.

He quickly snatched the parchment out of our hands and lit it on fire with his wand. What was that about? What did that message have to do with anything?

"Why-?" I started to ask.

"Just think about what you've read and it'll all make sense," Lupin told us.

What had the message said…it mentioned a number 12 Grimmauld Place, but I only saw numbers 11 and 13. _The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London…_what did that-

Suddenly, a door popped out of nowhere and there stood a number twelve right in between the two houses that had I hadn't seen anything between before. Where had that come from? I suppose that this was the secrecy part of the matter. Maybe you had to know the exact address and that it was Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix. Of course, it would have been nice to actually know what the Order of the Phoenix was before.

"Okay, let's go in - hurry up," Moody ordered.

We were rushed towards the door of number twelve quickly by the people that had brought us here. Before we actually went inside, Lupin walked up to the door and tapped the door once and several clicks went off and the door flew open. As soon as I stepped in, I got a sickening feeling as I smelled a nasty rotting smell went around us in the pitch black room that we were standing in.

We were ushered further into the house where I finally gained sight thanks to the chandelier that was hanging down. Although it didn't produce very much light, it was enough for me to see where I was walking. Around the hallway that we were walking through, I took note of the furniture that we saw. Most everything in there so far had been either something with a serpent on it or covered with cobwebs to the point that I couldn't see it. After a second of walking through the hallway, we came to a stop and the guard began to disperse into side doors that were around the hall.

"Harry - Emily!" someone said in an excited whisper.

I had just enough time to see that it was Mrs. Weasley before I was pulled into a tight hug that nearly cut off circulation. After she released me, she went over and did the same to Harry. "You two look like you need to be fed - you're going to have to wait a bit for dinner I'm afraid - Emily, I believe that George is waiting for you in the other room, he told me to tell you when you got here."

Harry glanced over at me and waved his hands towards the room Mrs. Weasley had pointed for me to go to. It was as if he was giving me permission to scurry off. For a moment, I was hesitant because of Harry's recent angry behavior, but I thought that it would be okay to leave him now that he was where he wanted to be.

When I pushed through the doors, I stepped into a drawing room where I found two, identical red heads sitting on a couch that was against the left side of the room. As soon as I walked in, Fred quickly shoved something into his pocket and looked up innocently. It was sad to say that I had seen this on several occasions. I wonder what kind of nonsense they were up to this time.

"Emily!" they both smiled at once.

"Hey," I smiled.

George walked over quickly and picked me up in a tight hug and spun me around. I laughed for a moment until he set me down and gave me a long kiss. It had felt like an eternity since I had last seen him.

"Enough of that now," Fred said. "I've just eaten!"

Fred pushed George off to the side and pulled me into a hug. Behind him, I could see George rolling his eyes at his brother.

"We all know that she's been waiting to see me all along," Fred said as he backed away. "After all, I'm the better looking one, right Emily?"

"Shut it Fred," George laughed and pushed his brother back playfully.

"So what have you all been up to over here?" I asked in all seriousness.

"It's been a bit odd actually," George said. "You know, with all of this Order of the Phoenix business…"

"No, I really don't know," I said. "I don't know anything about it, remember?"

"We were sworn to secrecy," Fred said. "Dumbledore wouldn't let anyone say anything."

"Why not?" I demanded.

Even though a small part of me knew that it wasn't their fault, I was coming to a sudden realization about what was going on. Everyone else had been completely informed about what was going on except for Harry and me. Why weren't we being told anything? It didn't make any sense to keep information from us considering the huge role that we played in all of this.

"Emily, it isn't that we didn't want to tell you," George said as he walked over towards me. "We wanted to tell you everything - but Dumbledore-"

"I know," I said shortly. "Why wouldn't he want us to know anything? Did he think that we would mess something up? Was it just _irrelevant_ that _we_ were the ones there when Voldemort came back? Does that not matter?"

"Emily-" George said as he tried to put his arm around me.

"Stop," I said and pushed his arm away. "This isn't some joke. This is serious. Did no one think to even drop us any sort of hint? We had no idea what was going on here! We had to stay at the Dursleys for a month without the slightest bit of information from anyone!"

"We don't know any more than you do," Fred said. "They don't let us in on their meetings -"

"Since when has that ever stopped you two before?" I said, my voice starting to raise even more as I felt like my blood was boiling with anger. "You two are _always_ breaking the rules! You can't tell me that them telling you that you aren't _allowed_ stopped you from trying to figure out what was going on!"

Fred and George just stood there, speechless and looking a bit embarrassed. It didn't matter though, they just didn't understand what Harry and I had experienced with the past month. I've tried to put on a happy face for Harry, but I was really sick of this.

I sat down on the couch that they had been sitting in before and put my face in my hands and rubbed my temples. It wasn't right for me to go off on them. It wasn't like it was their fault that we hadn't been getting any information. If I should be angry with anyone right now then it should be Dumbledore. This was all his fault anyway - he was the one that was denying us any information.

"I'm sorry," George said as he sat down next to me. "I really am…"

"It's not your fault…" I sighed. "I'm just…angry."

"We have been trying to get information," Fred said. "It's been difficult though, they've been really good about being secretive."

"And?" I asked without looking up.

"All we've gotten so far is that they are keeping watch on You-Know-Who," George said. "And that they are trying to recruit members…"

"And something about keeping watch on something," Fred added.

"It was probably Harry and me," I muttered as I looked up again. "Harry told me that we've been watched since the end of last term. Apparently Mundugus Fletcher and Mrs. Figg from down the street have been keeping a close eye on us recently."

"That makes sense…" Fred said after a moment. "I guess that was what they were talking about…"

"Anything else?" I asked with hope.

"Unfortunately not," George said. "We were using those Extendable Ears to listen in to the meetings - we finally found a good use for those things."

"I forgot about those," I murmured.

It had been a while sense we had even brought up those things. I still remember in our third year when the twins had recruited me to help improve the workings of those ears. I'm glad that they were finally being put to good use.

"Yeah, well, mum found out about them and got really angry," Fred said. "We had to throw away the ones that she found."

"Luckily enough," George said with a mischievous smile. "Mum didn't find them all."

From his pocket, Fred pulled out a familiar looking string with a large ear attached to the end of it. It still looked rather strange after all these years.

"Let's go fetch Harry first," George said. "I'm sure he would be interested as well."

"Okay, let's go," I said as I stood up and walked towards the door.

Before I made it too far, I was grabbed by two sets of hands and pulled back.

"Whoa, whoa, not so fast there ginger," Fred said.

"Ginger - really?" I said with a raised eyebrow. "And what's going on."

"Do you trust me Emily?" George asked.

"You know that I do," I said skeptically. "But why?"

"Don't ask questions, just take a firm grip on my arm," he said.

I grabbed onto George's right arm and looked at him again. I'm not sure what was going on, but it seemed a bit random. Then again, I shouldn't expect anything less than random around these two. They've been like that for as long as I had known them.

"Okay, ready?" he asked.

"For what?" I asked.

"Just prepare yourself," George said, sounding a bit amused.

"Sure…" I said.

Then, suddenly, it went completely dark and I felt as though I was being squeezed into some sort of small pipe and forced through it. Although it seemed like a century, I felt myself pop back into place within another second or two. However, when I opened my eyes, we weren't in the same room as we were in before. Instead, I found myself clutching onto George's arm next to Fred and surrounded by Harry, Ron, Hermione who all looked a bit on edge.

"Why hello children," Fred said with a smile.

"You two passed your Apparation test, I suppose," Harry said in a dull tone.

"That's right," George said proudly.

"Hello Emily!" Hermione smiled, then suddenly looked very concerned. "George - did you just do Side-Along Apparation?"

"What's it matter to you Granger?" George asked.

"Are you insane!" she demanded. "That is extremely dangerous! You've never done that before - Emily could have gotten seriously hurt!"

"Calm down Hermione, she's fine," Fred insisted. "Aren't you Potter?"

"Sure," I said, still a bit traumatized.

Harry looked a bit concerned, but still very angry about something. I had a strange feeling that he had been having a very similar conversation with Ron and Hermione about the lack of information that we received over the past month with the Dursleys.

"Okay, let's do this then," George said as he walked out of the door and tossed the ear down towards the room where all of the adults were.

Just as the ear went down the balcony, Ginny walked out of her room and shook her head in disapproval. At least, that's what I thought it was until she spoke up.

"It's not going to work - believe me, I've tried," she sighed. "They've put up enchantments so we can't listen in."

"How do you know?" Fred asked.

"Tonks taught me how," Ginny smiled. "You just have to throw some objects towards the room and if it bounces back then they've put something up. I've already thrown a few dungbombs at it and there is no way that the Extendable Ears are going to get through it."

"Pity…" George said as he pulled the ear back up.

"I would have loved to have heard what Snape's been up to," Fred sighed.

"Snape is here?" I asked quickly.

"He's in the Order, I meant to tell you," George said. "He's asked about you a few times before the other meetings - it's sort of strange, I've never actually spoken to the git outside of Potions class before."

"Sure we have," Fred nudged his brother. "We've gotten detention from him loads of times."

Although I would love to see my potions professor, it made me sort of angry that he's known just as much as everyone else and just didn't tell me. I guess that Dumbledore got to him as well. But why has he been asking George how I was doing? He'd been writing to me, so why didn't he just ask me himself. I don't think that I would ever understand that man.

"You all need to give him a break," Hermione said. "He's on our side now."

"So what," Ron said. "Everyone hates him - even Bill does!"

"Is Bill in the Order as well?" I asked.

"Yeah, he's left Egypt so he can stay here in the Order," George told us. "But that isn't the only reason - he's taken quite the liking to Fleur Delacour. He's been giving her lessons to improve her English."

"Right, I'm sure that's all that's going on there," I muttered.

"What about Charlie?" Harry asked.

"He's in the Order, but he's staying in Romania," Ron said. "He's trying to recruit foreigners to Dumbledore's side."

"What about Percy?" I asked. "Is he here as well?"

Suddenly everyone got really quiet. It was as if I had said Voldemort's name due to the reaction that I got from saying their brother's name.

"Dad and him had a fight a while back," Fred said. "He hasn't been on speaking terms with us and I suggest that you don't mention him around Mum and Dad - it'll start something."

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"It all started with this promotion that Percy got at the Ministry," George said. "He was appointed Junior Secretary to the Minister - which isn't exactly a good thing in these days."

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"Fudge has been…rather odd recently," Fred said. "He's been going around the Ministry and making sure that no one is on Dumbledore's side. You see, he thinks that Dumbledore is just trying to start trouble by saying that You-Know-Who is back."

"Fudge already suspects Dad," George said. "So Dad told Percy that he thinks that he only promoted him so that he could get information on our family about Dumbledore."

"I'm sure he loved hearing that," Harry said.

"He was really mad and he went off on Dad," George continued. "Then he left the house and he's living here in London now. He doesn't want anything to do with the family anymore."

"He reckons that we're all off our rocker listening to Dumbledore," Fred said. "He thinks that Dumbledore is insane to take the word of you two seriously."

"He's been reading the Prophet, of course," Hermione said angrily.

Then something occurred to me. I hadn't actually been reading the Prophet recently because Harry normally did that for me. Then again, he never really had anything to report. Did that mean that they were still talking about us and Harry didn't want to tell me.

"What have they been saying?" I asked Harry.

"I didn't know they were saying anything about us," Harry said. "I've only glanced through it - they would have it on the front cover if they were to say something about Voldemort."

Everyone looked a bit skeptical and awkward. Almost like they knew something that we didn't know and they really didn't want to be the ones to tell us.

"They've been talking about us?" I asked.

"Well, sort of," Hermione said. "You two have become…sort of a joke…"

Everyone got silent and looked at the ground. It seemed like it was difficult for them to even look towards us without feeling awkward.

"What have they said?" Harry insisted.

"They've been suggesting that you two are a bit…attention seeking," Hermione said slowly.

Just as we were about to go off, a door opened below and everyone's attention went down there. To be honest, I was sort of glad that this conversation had ended. I was getting very tired of being accused of being an attention-seeker…

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it. I know that it isn't the greatest of chapters, it was more of catching up with what is going on. The next chapter should be better.**

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	4. Finally Getting Some Answers

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 4**

As soon as we all heard Mrs. Weasley walking up the stairs, we quickly rushed back into the room that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been talking in when we Apparated up. Quickly and without all that much noise, we sat around the room so that it appeared that we had just been having a casual conversation so that when she opened the door, she wouldn't suspect a thing.

"And that's why you should always eat your vegetables," Fred said with a cheesy smile as the door opened.

There was a moment of silence when we all looked up at Mrs. Weasley who was now raising her eyebrow at her son. Could he have been any more obvious?

"Okay…well, the meeting is over," she said while still looking at us all suspiciously. "Dinner is nearly ready, so you all need to come downstairs and get settled."

We all nodded and started walking out of the door. Just as I was taking a step down the stairs, George grabbed onto my arm and suddenly I felt the same sensation that I had felt earlier that involved myself being painfully squeezed into a tube. After a second of that, I heard a pop and I rematerialized in a room that had a long table that I assumed to be the dining room.

"Would you stop that!" I shouted.

"Whatever you say, my dear," George said with an innocent smile.

I rolled my eyes and watched as a few members of the Order began to take a seat in some of the chairs provided. That's when I caught a certain silent professor of mine sneaking out of the room without a word to anyone. Was he not eating with us? Instead of asking someone, I decided to find out for myself as I stepped out of the room.

"Severus?" I called down the hall.

Snape stopped in his tracks and turned around looking completely surprised to see me. I found this a bit strange considering everyone else seemed to have been expecting our arrival here.

"Emily," he said in surprise. "I didn't realize that the two of you had arrived."

For a moment there was silence and then I walked over to him and gave him a huge hug. Even though I knew the man absolutely hated affection, I did it anyway. I guess a small part of me thought that it was funny to make him uncomfortable with my hugging him.

That's when I caught sight of another man that I had been dying to see over the shoulder of my potion's professor. I couldn't believe how well he looked now. Normally when I saw Sirius he appeared to have a sickened, messy look about him. I guess that now that he had a proper home to live in that he could now afford the luxury of keeping himself looking healthy.

"Sirius," I smiled.

Snape stepped back from me and turned around to face my godfather. It wasn't a secret in the household that these two men had hated each other for a long time. It was actually rather childish if you ask me. Then again, no one really did ask my opinion on the matter.

"Severus," Sirius said coldly. "I was under the impression that you had business elsewhere."

"That's right, I do," Snape said in an icy tone. "Unlike certain people in this house, who, shall we say, are not needed anywhere."

Sirius's eyes narrowed and he slowly walked over towards us. Instead of actually saying anything, he continued to glare at Snape while he hugged and greeted me.

"How is my favorite _goddaughter_ doing?" he asked while putting emphasis on the last part.

He only briefly looked away from Snape to glance over at me, but I could tell that there was something unspoken going on between Snape and him by the way that he was speaking, but I didn't quite understand.

"Er - I'm okay, I guess," I said awkwardly looking at the two men.

"That's wonderful Emily," Sirius said with a smile. "You know, it was so kind of your parents to appoint me your godfather and I am completely honored to be given that privilege. I heard that there were other people in mind, but, of course, those people are insignificant."

It was odd the way that he was speaking to me. Actually, it didn't seem like he was speaking to me at all. Everything he said appeared to be directed at another person in the room. Almost like some sort of mockery or insult.

"Pity she couldn't get a sensible guardian," Snape hissed. "Or even a guardian at all. You know, one that doesn't constantly have to stay inside a house so that he won't get thrown back in prison."

"It could have been worse," Sirius snarled. "She could have ended up with a godfather that would have given her over to the Dark side as soon as he got her filthy paws on her."

"You're one to talk about handing people over to the Dark side," Snape said threateningly. "Who was it that practically tossed the Potters in the hands of the Dark Lord?"

"_How dare you_!" Sirius snarled and went to jump for him.

I jumped in between the two men and held up my hands to Sirius.

"That is _enough_," I said firmly.

Snape's lip curled into an evil grin as he stared at Sirius as if he had one. On my left side, Sirius appeared like he was half tempted to push me to the side so he could finish off Snape once and for all.

"Yes, why don't we act like adults?" Snape said.

"I was talking to both of you," I said threateningly.

Snape coughed and looked back over to the door as if he was attempting to ignore me. Sirius still looked like he could kill Snape without an ounce of guilt about it. On the up side, neither of them were saying anything to the other.

"Well," Snape coughed. "As I said, I have to be going."

"You can't stay for dinner?" I asked.

"The man is busy, Emily," Sirius said with distain. "He _cannot_ stay any longer."

Even though Sirius said "cannot," it was clear to anyone listening that he really meant that he wasn't allowed to stay in the house any longer. Snape glared at Sirius for a moment and nodded in agreement.

"The dog - I mean, he is right," Snape said. "I believe that I have arrangements elsewhere."

"Okay," I said. "I guess that I'll see you later then."

Without the usual hesitation, and a lingering glare at Sirius I may add, Snape leaned in and gave me a hug goodbye. With one last smile, he walked towards the door.

"Goodbye Emily," he said.

I waved to him as he exited the house and, for a moment, the hallway that we were standing in remained silent. Knowing that Sirius was still tense from the…discussion…that had just happened, I tried to avoid eye contact for a moment and then I turned back towards the kitchen.

"Why do you associate yourself with that git?" Sirius asked angrily.

"I'm not really sure to be quite honest," I said.

Sirius let out a huff as we walked back into the dining room where Mrs. Weasley was now setting out the food on the table. I found an empty seat in between Harry and Ginny and sat down. Fred, George, and Mrs. Wealsey were all carrying in the food that they were setting out. From the yelling that I had just heard, I understood clearly that she was getting very tired of them using music all of the time. Since they are now seventeen, it is legal for them to do so out of school - something that they had obviously been taking advantage of.

It wasn't until just now that something occurred to me. During Sirius and Snape's little argument a moment ago, Sirius had mentioned something that I hadn't thought of. He had said that there were other choices in mind for my godfather. Had Snape really been considered? If that were true, it didn't take me a second to determine that it was my mothers choice given that my father hated him just like Sirius. Had my mother really been that close with him? Close enough that she would even consider granting possible guardianship of her children to him? It was all strange to think about. I wanted more than anything to ask Snape about it, but there was no way that I could. It would be far too strange.

Across from where I was sitting, I noticed that Tonks was doing something very strange. She was just sitting there like anyone else would when all of a sudden her nose changed into something that resembled a pig snout.

"Oh my gosh!" I said in shock. "What-?"

"Tonks is a Metamorphmagus," Ginny explained.

That did not explain anything at all. In fact, I think that I was more lost now than I was before.

"A what?" I asked.

"It means that she can change her appearance at will," Hermione said.

"She does it all the time," Ginny smiled. "Show her another one."

Hermione and Ginny, who I had guessed at this point had seen this done several times, looked completely thrilled to see this again. When I looked over at Tonks, she gave me a smile before she screwed her face up. Suddenly, her nose changed from a pig snout to a gargantuan nose that looked like it belonged so someone twice her size because it took up her entire face.

"How did you learn that?" I laughed.

"It isn't something you learn," she said as she changed her nose back to normal. "I was born like this, I've been like this for as long as I can remember."

For a few more minutes, I watched as Tonks changed, not only her nose, but the rest of her face and hair as well. For a moment, she took on a green shade of hair with large eyes and a button nose - then, only a moment later, she became a blonde with large ears, eyes, and a giant nose. It was really amazing the things that she could do.

"So Sirius," I turned to my godfather. "What have you been up to lately?"

"Nothing interesting," he sighed. "Being that I can't actually leave the house, all I've really been left to do is clean…something that Snape is so kind to bring up on a daily basis."

"Where did this house come from anyway?" Harry asked.

"Didn't you hear?" Sirius asked us both. "This is my family's house - well, it's mine now. I gave it up to be Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix."

"You're family had…interesting taste," I said while looking around at the dark and creepy decorations that filled the dining room.

"They weren't exactly the greatest of people," Sirius muttered. "But, I guess that something that they gave me finally came to use."

"It must be nice to not have to stay a dog all of the time," Harry said.

"This isn't any better," Sirius groaned. "I hate it hear - there is nothing for me to do. I would love to be able to walk around the streets again."

"The streets aren't so great," Harry said. "Especially when dementors spring out of nowhere."

"I would have loved to have some dementors come after me for a change," he laughed. "Anything to break this boredom."

"You're insane," I laughed.

Sirius nodded in agreement, but I could tell that it was all bothering him. I guess that they were trying to keep him hidden for his own benefit. Then again, I could seriously understand his anger with being trapped with nowhere to go.

"Where were you during all of this Emily?" Sirius asked.

"I was distracting the Dursleys," I grimaced. "Not exactly the greatest of chores."

"I can only imagine," Sirius chuckled.

Once we all finished with our dinners and Mrs. Weasley began to clear off the dishes, Sirius finally brought up the thing that I had been thinking about since we stepped through the doors of this house.

"I'm surprised that neither of you have asked about Voldemort," he said.

Silence filled the room with the mention of Voldemort's name. I watched as a few people began to shudder and a couple even gasped at the sound of the name that everyone seemed to fear.

"We did," Harry said. "We were told that only people in the Order were allowed that information."

"Not that it makes any sense," I said under my breath.

"You two are too young for that," Mrs. Weasley said.

"Too young?" I laughed. "Do you suppose that was what Voldemort was thinking when he tried to kill us last year? Or all of those other times?"

Mrs. Weasley's jaw dropped, but she closed it quickly and tried her best to look sternly at us both.

"I believe that they have a right to some information Molly," Sirius said. "After all, they've been trapped in a Muggle's house for the past month with not even a scrap of news."

Everyone stayed silent as we all turned our attention to Mrs. Weasley who was glaring across the table at Sirius as she took a temporary brake from clearing off the table. Anyone there could have guessed that she would have given anything to toss a knife over at him because of the look that she was giving him. In her eyes, we had no business knowing anything because of our age.

"Fine, but on one condition," she said quickly. "Only tell them what they _need to know_, nothing further, understood?"

"Of course, that's all I was planning on doing," Sirius shrugged.

All of the other children in the room appeared like they were trying to fade away into the background so they could listen in on the conversation, all of them hoping that they wouldn't be noticed. They had wanted to hear all about this since the moment that they walked into the house and they would have gotten to hear it too if it hadn't been for their mother.

"Off to bed - all of you," Mrs. Weasley ordered.

"What?" Fred demanded. "Why do they get to know things when we don't!"

"I'm your mother, do as I say," Mrs. Weasley said firmly. "I don't want you hearing this - now go!"

"Fine," George mumbled. "Emily will tell me about it later anyway…"

"And I'm sure that they'll tell us," Ron said motioning to Hermione and himself.

Mrs. Weasley looked like she was trapped because she couldn't really give any threats. How could she stop us from talking to one another? It was impossible.

"Fred and George are of age Molly," Mr. Weasley sighed. "And Ron is right, they are going to hear about it from Harry and Emily either way."

Mrs. Weasley puffed and then turned to her only daughter and pointed out of the room.

"Fine - Ginny, you have to go to bed," Mrs. Weasley ordered.

"What?" Ginny said. "But everyone else gets to stay!"

"You're too young Ginny - go _now_!" Mrs. Weasley demanded.

With a lot of complaining and mumbling under her breath, the only Weasley daughter stormed out of the room. Everyone stayed quiet until we heard the slamming of a door upstairs that told us that she was no longer able to listen.

"So…what do you two want to know?" Sirius asked.

Harry and I looked at each other and then back at our godfather. We had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time now, but I suddenly drew blank. Where do we start?

"Where is Voldemort?" Harry asked suddenly.

"What has he been doing?" I asked. "We haven't heard anything - "

" - we've been listening to the Muggle news," Harry said. "But it hasn't been too much help - "

" - has he stopped killing peopled?" I asked. "What -?"

Sirius held up his hands to both of us so that we would silence ourselves. Apparently our questions were very overwhelming.

"We aren't really sure where Voldemort is at the moment," Sirius said. "He's doing a very good job of hiding himself. He doesn't want anyone to know where he is."

"Then what have you all been doing here if you don't know where he is?" I asked.

"We've been trying to keep Voldemort from getting any kind of power," Lupin said. "We don't want him to gain power like he did last time."

"How do you do that when you don't know what he's planning to do?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore's got an idea and he normally ends up being right about these sort of things," Sirius said.

"What has Dumbledore been saying?" I asked.

"He thinks that Voldemort's getting an army together like he did last time," Lupin said. "Naturally, he's going to be recruiting a lot of people and we need to try to stop it as much as we can."

"How are you planning on stopping him from getting followers?" Harry asked.

"It's difficult," Bill said. "But we have been trying to get as many people to believe that he's back so that they can stay on our side before he gets to them. But being as the Ministry doesn't allow this sort of talk, we've had to be very sneaky about it."

"Why won't the Minister believe that he's back?" I asked.

"Because he thinks that Dumbledore is after his job," Mr. Weasley said. "And with Fudge telling everyone that Dumbledore is mad, it's really difficult for us to get supporters."

"But if he's getting followers, won't people have to believe that he's back?" Harry asked.

"Not at all Harry," Sirius said. "Voldemort doesn't just stroll around and ask people to be one of his supporters - he uses tricks and jinxes to get them on his side."

"He has to be after something else though," I said. "There has to be something other than followers that he's looking for."

"It has to be something that he didn't have last time," Harry nodded. "Are we right?"

Sirius nodded, "Something that he can only get by stealth."

"Than it's some kind of weapon," Harry said.

"A very powerful one at that," I said.

Sirius opened his mouth to say something else, but he was silenced immediately by a person on the opposite side of the room.

"I think that they've heard enough," Mrs. Weasley said stiffly.

"But-" I started.

"I don't want to hear it Emily," Mrs. Weasley said. "Off to bed, all of you - _now_."

Without another word, everyone went out of the room. Just as I was passing the front door to walk up the stairs, I was suddenly taken away from my thoughts of what had just happened when a screeching took up the entire room coming from a portrait nearby.

"_HALF-BREEDS, MUTANTS, FREAKS - YOU ALL DISGRACE MY HOME WITH YOUR FILTH -_ "

I nearly jumped out of my skin as I screamed and ran backwards quickly. Just as I nearly tripped over someone, I was caught by George. Only a second later, Sirius came running into the room. As soon as he made it to the portrait, he started yelling insults right back as he struggled to close the curtain in front of it. As soon as the curtain covered the woman in the portrait, everything went silent again.

"What was _that_?" I asked, still a bit shocked.

"That was my mother," Sirius said with a look of disgust. "I guess that you were the only one that didn't know about her Emily…"

"Pleasure to have met her," I said sarcastically.

"It's a shame that you didn't know her in person," Sirius said while rolling his eyes. "She was just as charming…well, off to bed with you all."

I nodded and said goodnight as we all made our way up the stairs and into our separate bedrooms. I said goodnight to everyone as I departed into the room that Ginny and Hermione had been sharing.

It felt like it had been a century since I had last slept.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I know that it wasn't one of the longest chapters, but I've been having a lot of end of the year exams lately and didn't have as much time as I wanted with this one. I hope that it wasn't too bad regardless. The next chapter should probably be up around Monday or Tuesday, so until then - have a good weekend!**

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	5. The Misery of the Longbottoms

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 5**

As much as I really did want to sleep, it didn't come to me immediately and it had nothing to do with what was on my mind - although that did play a large role. It was Ginny. She had been waiting in our room since the meeting and she looked very disgruntled when we walked into the door. After seeing that her mother wasn't with us, she quickly went to questioning us.

"What did they say?" she asked quickly after shutting the door.

"Er - I don't think that your mother-" Hermione started.

"I don't care what my mother says," Ginny said irritably. "I'm not too young to know anything - you all are only a year older than I am. She seems to be forgetting about that a lot lately."

Hermione and I shared a skeptical look, but I really didn't see the harm in telling her what happened. The least we could do was tell her the basis of what was happening. After all, I'm sure that she guessed as much as we were going to tell her anyway. I know that most of what they told us I probably could have figured out for myself.

"Fine," Hermione sighed. "But I'm not going to tell her because I don't want to be blamed."

Ginny gave me a hopeful look and I sat down on the bed that had been provided for me and started to tell her the basis of the Order's plan. All while I was telling her, it appeared like she was listening very intently and drinking in every word that I was saying. Apparently I wasn't the only one that had been waiting a while for information.

"Basically, they were just talking about what they think that Voldemort is up to," I said while ignoring the flinches and gasps from using his name. "They were just telling us what they believe his plans are. They can't really be sure because he's keeping himself out of sight, but they are trying to recruit and inform as many people as they can before it's too late."

Once I had finished, Ginny remained silent as if she was waiting for me to continue.

"Is that all?" she asked.

I thought to what Sirius had mentioned about some sort of weapon that Voldemort was looking for. However, I felt like that was going a bit too far and it really wasn't all that necessary to give her that information at the moment.

"Pretty much," I shrugged.

That's when I heard a knock on the door and I put on an innocent face in case it was Mrs. Weasley. She would kill me if she knew that I had said anything to her daughter about the meeting we just had. Instead of it being her, it was Fred and George who were looking around the hallway as they creeped quietly into the room. With one look at their younger sister, they knew that they weren't actually going to get to talk about anything too serious.

"What do you need?" Ginny asked.

"You mean that we can't just stop in and visit you all without having a reason?" George asked with an innocent smile.

"We all know that you came to see your girlfriend," Ginny rolled her eyes. "So I guess that you're just third wheeling again Fred?"

"Wow, I'm offended," Fred said while putting his hand to his heart dramatically. "But yes, that is exactly what I'm doing."

Fred suddenly disappeared and, with a sharp popping sound, appeared right next to me and put his arm around me.

"Hey baby," he winked. "Had enough of my brother yet? We all know that you want the more attractive one of us."

I laughed and rolled my eyes. I would have pushed him away, but George beat me to it as he shoved him away and sat down next to me. Fred started laughing and took a seat next to Ginny.

"So your brother seems awfully angry now-a-days," Fred said to me. "What's gotten his knickers in a twist?"

"What, did you forget about those dementors attacking him?" I asked. "He's angry because he was threatened with expulsion and now he's going to have to have a trial because of it. It's all a real mess if you ask me."

"He should be fine," George said. "He was defending himself and your cousin, I'm sure he'll get away easily."

"I'm not so sure George," I sighed. "Since last year...the two of us have gotten a bit of a reputation. Everyone thinks that we're a bunch of liars."

George went to say something else when we all suddenly became silent when the floor started to creak just outside of our door. Fred and George's eyes began to grow wide and they quickly looked at each other in a sort of panic. It was Mrs. Weasley.

"Why can't she just trust us?" Fred whispered.

"Well, look at us now?" I said in a low voice. "We are doing exactly what she expected - get out of here before she checks our room!"

They nodded and with a small pop they vanished out of the room. Mrs. Weasley must have heard because her footsteps quickened towards our door and we quickly moved to act like we were sleeping. When the door opened, we were all laying under our covers looking as though we had been sleeping for a while.

* * *

The next morning we received information on the date of Harry's hearing with the Ministry. When I saw the date on paper that morning, I dropped the fork in my hand and Harry looked scared with the realization that this was happening sooner than expected.

"Oh no," I said while picking up the letter again and looking at the date. "That's when I told Neville that I would meet his parents...I guess that will have to wait..."

"No, just go with him," Harry said with a nervous twitch in his face. "Really, it won't bother me."

"I have to be there for you Harry," I said. "You can't go there alone!"

"But you've had this planned for a while," Harry said. "And I think that it's more important for you to be with him for that visit anyway...and I know how much you wanted to go with him and I don't want to stop you from doing that..."

It wasn't hard for me to guess that he was just trying to be nice - he really did need me there, but I didn't want to argue with him. We had a talk over the summer about Neville's parents and I already know how Harry feels about the whole situation. He feels terrible that he had never asked Neville anything about what happened to his parents and we both agreed that he got the worse end of the deal when it came to Voldemort. It had never been easy for either of us to lose our parents and forced to live with Muggles that hated everything about our culture. As hard as that it, I could never imagine being in Neville's situation. I couldn't imagine having to face my parents who didn't even know who I was because of what they went through.

When I told Harry that Neville asked me to visit his parents with him, he told me that he thought that it was really good of me to accept that. He told me that I had to go there no matter what because he thought that our support would help him more than anything at this point, especially considering that we were the only ones that actually knew the situation. Harry thought that it would help him even more since we had experienced loss from Voldemort too.

"Wait, what's going on?" George asked as he walked into the room.

"I'm going to go visit Neville, didn't I tell you that?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," George said. "I remember you mentioning it...why exactly are you going to see him?"

I hesitated for a moment in telling him. When Neville had told me what had happened to his parents, I made a vow that I wouldn't tell anyone what had happened to them - including George. I couldn't break that promise now because of the possibility of George getting jealous.

"I'm just going to be meeting some of his family," I said.

"Right..." he said. "Just makes sure he keeps his hands to himself...I don't want to half to kill the boy..."

"George, it isn't like that," I laughed.

"I hear you," George smiled.

The days before the trial seemed to fly before me. Through all of the constant cleaning through the house, we were all so occupied that I was shocked when it was mentioned that the trial was being held the very next day during dinner. While we were going through the house, I made a promise to Harry that I would at least walk to the Ministry with him and that I would bring him to the trial. Mr. Weasley had a talk with me earlier and mentioned that he thought it would be best for me to not be in the room regardless of my arrangements.

"I just don't think that they would like an audience," he said. "They are rather...tough people if you ask me."

"But I'm his sister," I said.

"They don't care Emily," he sighed. "I'm sorry to bring it up again, but you two aren't exactly on the best of terms with the Ministry as it is..."

It was true. I had been looking through a lot of newspapers in my free time and I took note on how often our names were used as a sort of joke throughout. I just hope that Harry didn't see it though. He had enough on his mind to worry about without having to deal with media attention.

One day, while we were cleaning through Sirius's house, Harry and I came across something very interesting. It was the Black family tree that seemed to be dated back a long way from what I could see. On the tapestry, I saw several faces, even some that I recognized.

"Sirius, where are you on here?" I asked him.

He walked away from what he was doing near by and frowned when he saw what I was looking at. Harry looked up as well and then looked through the many faces in attempt to find our godfather.

"See that spot right there?" he asked as he pointed to a large, charred looking spot in the tapestry. "That was me - my mother took me off of here when I left the house."

"Why did you leave?" Harry asked.

"I was sick of it here," Sirius said. "My family was obsessed with their pure-blood heritage. Most of them felt like they were royal just being part of the family..."

"Where did you go?" I asked.

"Your father's house," Sirius smiled. "The Potters loved me, unlike my own family. I was an embarrassment here - my brother Regulus was the son that my parents alway wanted."

He pointed to a nearby picture of a man that resembled Sirius slightly. Underneath his picture, I noticed that there was also a death date included and it wasn't all that long ago - just fifteen years.

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"He joined the Death Eaters," Sirius chuckled angrily. "The idiot..."

"Your brother was a Death Eater?" Harry asked in shock.

"Come on now," Sirius said looking at both of us. "I'm sure that you two could have guessed what my family was now that you've seen their house."

"So...they supported Voldemort?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," Sirius sighed.

I looked around the tree for a moment and was shocked when I caught sight of some of the names on there. Malfoy, Lestrange, Weasley - how many families were on here?

"Sirius - you're related to them?" Harry asked as he pointed to Draco.

"Just about all of the pure-blood families are related," Sirius said.

"The Lestranges too..." I muttered angrily.

"They are in jail now," Sirius said. "They deserve to rot in there in my opinion..."

* * *

On the morning of the trial, I found Harry pacing around upstairs before breakfast and he looked really scared. After speaking with Ron about how Harry was acting, I headed back upstairs to see if I could help him at all. I found him sitting in his bed with his head in his hands as he tapped his foot around nervously.

"Harry?" I said as I pushed the door open and stepped into his room.

He looked up quickly and put on a nervous smile when he saw that it was me. He was trying to act like he was brave, but I knew that it was all an act - he couldn't fool me.

"Is breakfast ready?" he asked shakily.

"In a minute," I said and took a seat next to him. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine - " he said.

"No you aren't," I interrupted him. "Harry, are you sure you don't want me to go with you? I'm sure that Neville would understand."

"No, you heard what Mr. Weasley said," he said. "They'll probably get angry if you go with me..."

I sighed and took his hand and squeezed it. He was going to do everything he could to try to act like he was fine. As much as he wanted me there, he was going to say anything that he could from making me feel like I had to be there for him because he was scared.

I nodded and then stood up and took him by the hand and walked down into the dining room so that he could try to eat something before we all left. It wasn't any use though, he was far too nervous to stomach anything that had been set on the table.

After I finished eating some toast, Mr. Weasley announced that we should be heading off to the Ministry now. Harry's eyes widened and her nervously stood up without looking anyone in the eye. He was terrified. Everyone wished him luck, and before we knew it, we were outside of the door and on our way to the Ministry.

"We're going to be using the visitor's entrance," Mr. Weasley said as we walked a bit further. "It'll probably be better to not use magic considering what your case is about Harry."

Harry grunted and continued to look miserable as we walked on. I felt like I should be saying something, but at the same time I didn't think anything I said would help him in the slightest at this point. He was far too nervous for any sort of comforting.

When we got to the train station, Harry and I paid for tickets and got on a train headed for London. When we stepped onto the train, it was incredibly crowded with all sorts of people and we had to stand up and hang onto a couple of bars that were stationed around us. My guess was that they were all Muggles given that they were traveling this way rather than Apparating. Then again, that's what we were doing.

At one point, just two stops before our destination according to the map, some raggedy man who appeared to be in his mid to late thirties kept eyeing me. I did my best to ignore him, but after a few minutes, he creeped closer over to me until he was only a couple of feet away.

"Hey pretty," he asked with a nasty sounding cough. "What's your name?"

"Er…" I said uncomfortably.

Before I could say anything, Mr. Weasley stepped over next to me and looked at the man dangerously. It was strange because I'd never actually seen Mr. Weasley like this. Normally he just seemed to be a bit reserved.

"What's the big deal man?" the man asked angrily. "I'm just talking - "

"It's in your best interest if you stay away from my daughter," Mr. Weasley said threateningly.

"Daughter - okay, okay, I'll back off," the man shrugged and walked away.

"Thanks…" I said.

Mr. Weasley nodded and smiled before he looked out of the window again. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't really spoken with Mr. Weasley in a while. Sure, we had a few conversations here and there, but nothing too significant. I wonder if he really thought of me like a daughter. Now I feel bad for not talking to him very much…

"Where are you meeting Neville?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"Mrs. Longbottom said that she would meet me in London before we went off to the Ministry," I said.

"Oh, so she'll meet us after we stop then?" Mr. Weasely asked.

"I suppose," I said while glancing over at Harry who sat down a few feet away. "I wanted to go to the Ministry with Harry, but Neville said that his gran is way too impatient…"

Before I had gone to bed the night before, Neville had sent me a letter stating that his gran wanted to meet me in London before we made our way into the Ministry. She claimed that she didn't have time to wait for me to deliver my brother to the Ministry. Neville said that she was just didn't feel like waiting around.

"How is she doing now?" Mr. Weasley asked. "I haven't seen her in a long time."

"Neville said that she's no different than usual," I said.

Mr. Weasley nodded just as the train stopped where we were to get off. Harry walked out of the train in a zombie like state and looked around like he was completely lost. From what I could tell, we were in the heart of London - just where Mrs. Longbottom wanted to meet me.

"There they are," Mr. Weasley pointed.

Through the crowd of people, I could just make out a large hat sitting on top of an older woman's head. As soon as she looked up, I could see clearly that it was Neville's grandmother. Next to her stood Neville, who seemed to have grown even taller over the summer. It took a minute to get through the crowd, but we eventually made it over to them.

"Hello Arthur," Mrs. Longbottom said. "Nice of you to bring her here."

"Nice to see you," Mr. Weasley smiled.

"Yes, well, we better be off now," Mrs. Longbottom said. "We have a lot to be doing today."

Neville rolled his eyes while looking another way because of his impatient grandmother. Harry, who was standing only a couple inches away from me, seemed to not want to leave the spot. He probably would rather put off his trial for as long as he could.

I pulled Harry off to the side for a moment for a few last words.

"You're going to be fine Harry," I said. "Just make sure that you act as innocent as you can - try and be respectful so that they will be easier on you."

"I know," Harry said nervously.

"Send me the results if I don't make it back soon enough, okay?" I said.

He nodded and looked down at the floor. I moved forward and pulled him into a hug. This seemed to be just what he needed because he hugged be back tightly and didn't seem to want to let go.

"I love you Harry," I whispered. "Everything is going to be fine, okay?"

"Love you too," he whispered.

Mr. Weasley finished up a last few words with Mrs. Longbottom before he turned around and said that they had to get going. I watched as they turned around a corner and, with a last look at Harry, they disappeared around the corner.

"Okay, let's get a move on," Mrs. Longbottom said impatiently. "We don't have all day now."

She began walking ahead and Neville trailed along beside me. The streets seemed to be as crowded as the train station as we pushed our way through all of the people for a good while. It wasn't difficult to keep track of where Mrs. Longbottom was because of the enormous stuffed vulture that was on her hat, which happened to gain several looks from the passing Muggles.

"Here we are," Mrs. Longbottom announced as we stepped towards a rather vacant looking brick building called Purge and Dowse Ltd.

The building that we stood in front of seemed to be abandoned because of how unkempt and out of date it appeared. I looked around for a moment to see if I was missing something, but nothing around us suggested even the slightest hint of a nearby hospital. Maybe Mrs. Longbottom wanted to stop off somewhere before we actually went to see them.

"Neville…?" I started

"We're here to see Frank and Alice Longbottom," Mrs. Longbottom said to the dummy that sat inside of the window.

My jaw dropped when the dummy nodded and beckoned us towards itself. Neville let out a small chuckle as he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the glass. I was about to ask what was going on when we suddenly walked directly through the glass that the dummy stood in.

The next thing I knew, I was standing inside of an extremely clean looking reception area that was obviously part of a hospital. This room, although less crowded with people than the streets outside of here, had several witches and wizards busily moving around the area.

"It's like Platform 9 ¾ in a way," Neville explained. "They didn't want it to be obvious to the Muggles outside…"

"So why didn't they just put it in Diagon Alley?" I asked.

"It's far too big for that," Neville said. "Where's Gran - oh, there she is."

Several yards ahead of us, his grandmother was walking along with the crowd towards a flight of steps that was off to the side.

"I don't know why she is in such a rush…" Neville muttered.

Neville held onto my arm and pulled me through the crowd and up to the stairs where his grandmother was already going. We walked until we made it to the fourth floor of the building that was labeled SPELL DAMAGE where we found her waiting for us.

"It's about time," Mrs. Longbottom complained. "Thought that you two had run off…"

We walked into the small reception office for this floor where the Healer there seemed to recognize Neville's Gran right off and, with a small smile, led us off into a separate room labeled LONG-TERM RESIDENTS. It was a large room that only had a few guests inside of it. I was shocked when I caught sight of a wall that had several pictures of a familiar face smiling at me.

"Is that - ?" I asked in shock.

"Lockhart, yes, that's him," Neville said. "I guess that they had him step out for a bit. He was put in here after our second year. He seems to be remembering some things though. Every time I come in here, he's asking for my autograph…"

"I guess that's…good?" I said.

"Depends on how you look at it really," Neville said under his breath.

We went to walk further into the room and catch up with Mrs. Longbottom when Neville suddenly stopped me in my tracks. He stepped in front of me to block my view of the rest of the room. He suddenly looked very distraught.

"Before you go over there…" Neville said. "I've told you before that they…aren't in their right minds…"

"Yes…" I said while looking at the ground.

"Well…it wasn't an exaggeration," Neville murmured. "They don't know who they are…who I am…what anything is really…so, just don't expect much, okay?"

"Neville, I…" I started, but couldn't bring myself to say anything else.

He nodded and stepped aside. Together, we walked along towards the last two beds in the room. As soon as I saw the people there, there was no denying that they were his parents - they had so many similarities in appearance.

When we stepped over there, Neville smiled wearily at them. They looked up weakly and looked at him as though he was some sort of foreign object. I felt a sudden pang in my stomach as they looked between us both without any interest.

"Neville brought along a friend," Mrs. Longbottom said in a falsely cheery tone. "This is Emily - Emily, this is Frank and this is Alice."

They seemed to recognize what she had said and only briefly looked up at me curiously.

"Hi," I said with a small smile.

"Hi Mum and Dad," Neville said quietly.

They looked at us both before they suddenly lost interest and began looking around the room in boredom. Neville looked down at the ground next to me and refused to look me in the eye. Without a word, I held onto his hand and squeezed it.

"They were Aurors before all of this, did you know?" Mrs. Longbottom said suddenly to me.

I shook my head slowly and looked back towards his parents. Frank was picking at the sheets on his bed while Alice was taking a piece of candy out of a container next to her bed. Both of them looked so tired and weak…

"Yes, they were very well respected by everyone during their time," Mrs. Longbottom nodded. "Very brilliant, the two of them were. Of course, the Death Eaters seemed to think so as well - that's how they ended up here…"

Mrs. Longbottom looked at Neville's parents with sadness in her eyes. She seemed like she was about to say something else when the Healer walked over towards them with food trays floating up behind her.

"Here we go," she said with a smile as the food floated over to them both.

"How have they been doing?" Mrs. Longbottom asked.

"Today's been a good day so far," the Healer said. "I had them both walking around earlier, so they've been feeling better."

"That's wonderful," Mrs. Longbottom nodded.

The Healer walked in between them and made sure that they were eating properly before she stepped out of the door with the empty trays once they were finished.

"Neville, if you don't mind," Mrs. Longbottom said. "I'd like to speak to them alone for a minute…"

Neville nodded and walked me out of the room and into the hallway where we sat in a nearby chair. He looked graven and his eyes were a bit watery. He still wouldn't look at me.

"I'm happy that we've caught them on a good day…" Neville murmured quietly.

"They seem to be doing all right," I said while looking at the ground.

"Yeah…" Neville said. "…I just wish sometimes that…that their memory would come back…just for a minute…that's all I want…just a moment…"

I looked over at him and his eyes were puffy and he looked worse than I had ever seen him. A tear slid down his face and he quickly wiped it away and I looked down so that he didn't know that I saw him.

"Sometimes…Gran doesn't let me see them when they get too bad ," he whispered. "But sometimes they'll just burst out when I'm there…start screaming and…hurting themselves…"

Neville's hold on my hand tightened as he looked down the opposite end of the hall to hide his face from me. I felt my eyes start to water up and I couldn't bring myself to say anything in fear of having myself start to cry. It wouldn't help him at all.

We sat in silence for a long time, just holding each other's hands as I silently tried to comfort him when Mrs. Longbottom called us back into the room.

Not much was said between any of us for the remainder of the visit. For a minute, I had excuse myself to the bathroom after Neville finished telling his parents about going back to school for the year. In all reality, I just didn't want him to see me crying my eyes out because of how upsetting it was to see him pour his heart out to people he loved so much when they didn't even know who he was.

For the first time in my life, I realized that, no matter how terrible my life has been, I've never had it as bad as Neville. Even though I have had to face many difficulties in my life, I've always had Harry at my side to help me through it all while Neville had to face the world with a brave heart all by himself.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you like it! The next chapter should probably be up by Thursday, so just keep your eyes out for it if you are interested.**

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	6. Trial Results and Prefects

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 6**

After we finished our visit, I received an owl from Mr. Weasley saying that he would pick me up where we met at the train station because the case was nearly over. It was making me anxious that the trial was taking so long and I wondered if it was because they weren't believing what he was telling them.

"I've been hearing about you and your brother in the paper lately," Mrs. Longbottom said after a moment of waiting.

"Gran, I asked you not to - " Neville started.

"I know, I wasn't going to say anything bad," she said. "I'm just saying that they have been in the paper quite often recently."

"I've seen it..." I said while looking at my feet.

That's what I've been dreading since the moment that I saw our names in the paper: what others would think about us now that we've been written out as attention-seeking psychopaths. Now I had to wonder if that played any sort of role in Harry's court case.

"You shouldn't be ashamed," Mrs. Longbottom said. "It isn't your fault that Fudge refuses to believe the truth."

My head jerked up suddenly and Mrs. Longbottom was smiling at me. I was in shock. Neville's grandmother had always been so critical and I just went on to assume that she would believe anything that the Ministry said.

"You believe us?" I asked in shock.

"Of course I do," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You're a friend of Neville's and you seem to be a kind young lady and I could never imagine a person like you coming up with something like You-Know-Who's return. It just doesn't seem very logical of the Ministry to think that you're lying. Besides, Dumbledore seems to believe you as well and I don't think that he would put that much on the line for something that he didn't fully believe."

Now why couldn't everyone else think like that? Everyone used to elieve everything that Dumbledore said and now, all of a sudden, he's turned into just as much of a joke as Harry and me.

"Thank you Mrs. Longbottom," I said.

"Enough with that - just call me Gran," she insisted.

We stood around for a good while before Gran took us over to get something to eat for lunch, deciding that we were probably going to be waiting a good while before they could find us anyway. All the while, I was still incredibly anxious to hear what the results were from Harry's case. If he was no longer allowed to use magic anymore, then I couldn't even imagine going to Hogwarts without him. It would be far too weird.

"He's going to be fine," Neville said as I took my millionth look out of the window.

"Yeah, but what if he's not?" I asked. "There is a very strong chance that they could say that he's guilty…"

"But he was defending himself," Neville said. "They have to take that into account."

"True, but what if they don't believe that the dementors were even there?" I asked.

Neville went to say something when Gran sat down and started talking loudly over us about the service.

"I have to give it to these Muggles," she said. "They sure know how to cook food!"

Neville's face went red as several of the other customers looked over at our table with raised eyebrows. As if we weren't getting enough looks with that hat that she was wearing. In a sense, I thought that it was rather funny that she could care less what other people thought of her. It wasn't like we would see these people again anyway.

"You live with a set of Muggles, don't you Emily?" she asked me.

"Yes, my aunt and uncle and their son," I nodded.

"I've heard that they are quite awful to you," she said. "At least that's what I hear from Neville."

"They can be horrible, but they have their moments where they aren't too bad," I said. "Of course, not all Muggles are like that. I knew a couple of decent ones when I went to the school there."

We sat around and talked about Muggles and the Dursleys for a while longer before the waiter came over to give us our bill and take some of the trash to the nearby bin.

"He's staring at you…" Neville whispered as the waiter made his way back to our table.

"No he isn't," I said.

He was staring at me a lot, but I was trying to tell myself that it was just my imagination and prayed that he wouldn't actually try to say anything to me. Unfortunately, I didn't get my wish because he tried to strike up a conversation. What was with these strange Muggle men today?

"Come here often?" he asked with a smile. "I've never seen you around before."

"Er…no," I said. "I've never been here before."

"We're just coming around for a visit," Gran spoke up.

"You should come by more often," he said suggestively. "I'd love to see you again - what's your name?"

"I'm Emily…" I said. "I'm sorry, but I have a boyfriend."

"Oh," he said going a little red in the face as he threw a look over my shoulder at Neville. "I'm sorry mate…"

Neville looked over his shoulder as if he thought he was talking to someone else and then had to cough to cover up a laugh that he was about to let out. Acting accordingly, probably just to annoy the guy, he put his arm around me and nodded.

"It's fine," he nodded. "Just watch yourself mate."

The waiter nodded and then scurried off to wait on another group of people on the opposite end of the store. As soon as we paid our bill, we walked out of the restaurant, laughing all the way to our outside of the train station.

"I kind of feel a bit bad for that guy," Neville said.

"He seemed nice," I laughed. "It's okay, he'll bounce back now that we're gone."

"Did you see the look on his face when he thought that you were talking about me?" Neville laughed. "He looked like he just swallowed a bug."

We laughed about it for another minute or so before I caught sight of two people that I had been waiting to see ever since we set out from the hospital. Harry and Mr. Weasley were stepping out of the train and walking through the crowd towards us. It was hard to tell by the looks on their face on whether or not he was pronounced guilty or not.

"Harry!" I shouted and waved my hand up so that he could see us.

When they found us, they quickly stumbled over to us through the crowd and appeared breathless when they got over here.

"So…?" I asked.

"They said I was cleared of all charges," he said in shock.

I let out a small scream of joy and hugged him tightly. He started to laugh and everyone else was smiling and congratulating him on getting through the trial. I was so happy that I wouldn't have to go back to Hogwarts alone. Then again, I had been thinking that I would probably stay back with Harry if he wasn't allowed back…Hogwarts just wouldn't be the same without my brother there.

However, I could tell that there wasn't something right about the whole ordeal because Harry still seemed a bit confused. During our train ride home, he told me all about what happened in the court room and I was shocked to hear that Dumbledore was there.

"It was strange because he wouldn't even talk to me afterwards," Harry said. "Almost like he was ignoring me…"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, after they told me that I was cleared, he just bolted from the room without saying a word to me," Harry said with concern. "It isn't like him to do that…"

"That is strange…" I said. "Maybe he was just really bust with something and didn't have enough time - he probably had somewhere else to be. George has told me that he's been running all over the place because of the Order."

"Maybe that's it…" Harry said, still sounding a bit unsure.

I didn't actually see Dumbledore like Harry did at the case, but from what I heard, he was acting a bit strange. Even if he was busy, he could have at least told Harry something. And that whole bit about him not even bothering to look at Harry - that was just flat out weird. Harry and Dumbledore had always gotten along very well and it was coming off like he was angry with him.

Maybe that was just it. Maybe Dumbledore was starting to regret taking our side with this whole matter and now he was angry with the two of us for even getting him involved…

* * *

When everyone heard about the news of the trial, we all had a giant celebration. Everyone in the house was so happy for him. However, as time went along, I couldn't help but notice that a certain someone seemed a bit depressed after a few days of celebration.

During dinner one evening, I found Sirius sitting alone in the drawing room. He seemed to be just staring at nothing in particular and looked as bored as I do during a History of Magic lesson at school. What was his deal?

"Sirius?" I called over to him.

He looked up suddenly from his daze and put on a false smile for a greeting. It was actually rather depressing looking to be honest. So, I walked over to the couch that he was sitting on and took a seat next to him. He put his arm around me like he usually did, but I could still tell that something was bothering him.

"Are you okay?" I asked him.

"Sure, never better…" he murmured.

"I'm being serious…no pun intended," I said. "Something is bothering you - you aren't a very good actor."

"It's nothing important," he said shortly.

That's when I suddenly realized what it must be. Before Harry went to the trial, he told me that Sirius had a talk with him about the possible outcomes of it. Sirius had suggested that Harry could permanently live with him if they said that he was no longer allowed at Hogwarts. Maybe there was more to that suggestion than I had originally thought.

"I'm sorry that Harry can't live with you Sirius," I said quietly. "But he needs to be at Hogwarts - that's where he belongs."

"I know that…" Sirius said. "I just…I don't know…I was hoping that if he didn't get through this than he would stay here and then you would do the same…it was foolish, I know…"

"We're still going to be here for you Sirius," I said. "But we do have to go to school - there is a lot that we haven't learned yet…"

"Yeah…" he sighed. "Remember when you used to come by and see me everyday? I miss that a lot…I rarely get to see either of you anymore…"

Now that he mentioned it, I realized just how much I had missed those times too. Then again, I felt a lot better now that he was always safe at Grimmauld Place instead of lurking around the grounds of Hogwarts where anyone could spot him. Of course, he couldn't really get away with his disguise as a dog much more now that Voldemort had Wormtail on his side. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that he had already given that information away.

"Well, maybe it will be easier in the future," I said. "Once we get out of Hogwarts, we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, I'm sure of it. And during the summers, I'm sure that I could convince the Dursleys to let us come and see you. All we have to do is say that you're a runaway and they'll probably hope that we're killed over here. It'll make them happier than ever!"

"Yes, well," he chuckled. "For the time being, I guess that I'll just have to put up with all of this…you know that you're going to have to start writing me more often once you get to Hogwarts. I hear from Harry far more than I hear from you."

"That's because I normally tell him what to write," I said. "I have some input in those letters, thank you very much."

"I should have known that those small words of advise weren't really from Harry," Sirius laughed. "It did seem a bit out of character for him to be telling me those sort of things…"

We didn't really say much after that. We sort of sat in silence for a while until Ginny came looking for us telling us that our food was getting cold. Not to mention that Mrs. Weasley was complaining because she had spent so much time on this dinner and we hadn't even shown up for it yet. Sirius had considered just staying in the drawing room, but I dragged him into the dining room and told him that he had to socialize with people before he ended up going crazy.

* * *

Finally, the day came around when we got our list of supplies from Hogwarts. I was sitting in Ron and Harry's room while they talked about nothing in particular when Mrs. Weasley dropped off our letters at the door. I read through mine quickly and noted that we would only need two new books this year.

Just as I set mine down, Fred and George popped into the room, making Harry jump up from his chair quickly. I laughed because, by now, I was so used to this sort of thing that I hardly even noticed it anymore. Though I had this strange feeling that they were only doing this to impress all of us.

"Did you see that book that they've assigned for Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Fred asked. "Seems like complete rubbish in my opinion."

"I can't believe that they even found a new person to take the job," George said in surprise as he sat down next to me.

"Why is that?" Harry asked.

"They don't exactly have the best track record at our school, do they?" I asked. "Look at all of the people before."

"Yeah - with one dead, one fired, one's memory erased, and another locked in a trunk for a good while, I'm surprised that we didn't have a load of offers," Fred laughed.

"I wonder who we're going to get this year," I said.

"Probably another winner," George said sarcastically. "I'm sort of hoping it'll be a vampire - that would be interesting."

"Hopefully not one that sparkles…" Fred said under his breath.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," Fred said.

"Ron - what's wrong?" Harry asked.

I hadn't noticed just how quiet Ron had become since our letters came in. That's probably because he was still staring at the letter with his jaw dropped in what appeared to be complete shock.

"Did you forget how to read?" Fred asked.

"Or to talk?" George asked.

"I've been made a prefect," Ron said in shock.

The room fell silent instantly as we all stared at him in disbelief. Out of all of us, I could have never imagined Ron being assigned prefect. He wasn't exactly one to follow the rules and now he was being made to enforce them? Who gave him _that _job?

"Who in their right mind did that?" George spoke for me.

"If anyone, I would have thought that Harry would have gotten it," Fred said.

I shot him a look and he held up his hands in defense.

"Dumbledore knows that you've helped with our pranks in the past," Fred said. "There was no way that he would even consider you. Then again - you did tie for first in the Triwizard."

"Not to mention everyone knows that Dumbledore is fond of you both," George said.

"Then again, everyone does think that you two are mad," Fred said. "I suppose that they didn't want to add to the pressure or anything."

"That or they knew that you two aren't complete gits," George muttered. "Imagine what Mum is going to say when she finds out that ickle-Ronniekins is a prefect."

"It's going to be disgusting," Fred stuck out his tongue.

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and Hermione stood there looking as though she had just set the house-elves free. In her hand, I saw the same badge that Harry was looking at - she had been made a prefect too. Of course, it wasn't really much of a surprise that she had done it.

"I cannot believe it - I made it!" she said happily. "Harry - I knew it would be you - "

She was cut off by all of the looks of confusion around the room when she said Harry's name. I guess that she must have mistaken Harry for a prefect because he was holding the badge instead of Ron.

"Harry isn't a prefect," I laughed. "That's Ron's badge."

"What?" Hermione asked in shock. "Ron - ? That's wonderful! A bit…er…"

"Unexpected?" Fred and George said together.

"Not really, if you think about it," Hermione said. "Ron's done a lot of…er…good deeds at Hogwarts."

She was cut off from her awkward speech when Mrs. Weasley came back into the room with Ginny standing next to her. She obviously didn't pick up on what was going on because she was asking about Ron's robes and whether or not they would still fit him properly.

"What is that?" she asked suddenly when she saw Ron holding his badge.

"Ron's been made a prefect," Fred rolled his eyes.

"Ron - really?" she asked with a huge smile on her face. "That's wonderful Ron! A prefect - I cannot believe it! That'll be everyone in the family!"

"What are we?" George asked.

"Next door neighbors?" Fred asked.

But Mrs. Weasley seemed to be far too happy to even notice Fred and George because she was now giving Ron such a big hug that I thought that I would see his eyes pop out any moment.

"So - what would you like?" she asked after releasing him.

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked.

"As a reward of course," Mrs. Weasley said happily. "A new set of robes perhaps?"

"We've already gotten him some," Fred grumbled.

"C-can I have a new broom?" Ron asked.

Mrs. Weasley's face dropped at this request. Of course, as we all knew very well, brooms were not exactly the cheapest thing that a person could by.

"Not an expensive one - just a better one than I already have," Ron said.

"O-of course," Mrs. Weasley said and pulled him in for another hug.

After all of that madness was done, the twins Disapparated from the room and Ginny and Mrs. Weasley went off to finish up making something for dinner. After a moment, Ron went off to tell him mother that he wanted to have a Cleansweep for a broom. That's when I noticed how off my brother looked.

It only took me a second to realize that he must have wanted to become a prefect. That or he was just taking it personally that Dumbledore didn't choose him to be one. To be honest, I could care less that he didn't choose me. I didn't want the job. After all, it would be a bit awkward to have to constantly take points off of my own boyfriend along with all of my other friends.

"Harry?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine," he lied. "Congratulations on becoming a prefect Hermione."

"Thanks…" she said awkwardly. "I'm sure that he just thought that you two would be busy with other things anyway…after all, Harry you have Quidditch…and Emily…I'm sure he didn't think it would be a good idea to put George's girlfriend in charge of managing behavior…"

"Yeah…I'm sure that's what it was," I said.

Although I wasn't angry about the fact that we weren't made prefects, it got me wondering why. Harry had mentioned that Dumbledore was acting funny around him recently and I partly had to wonder if that had any effect on his decision.

Did he think that we just couldn't handle it? Or was it because he didn't trust either one of us?

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it. Just so you all know, I'm going to be going on vacation this weekend and I might not have the next chapter up as soon as I would like to. I'll try to have it up sometime between Monday and Wednesday.**

**Also, I'm going to be going on a ten day trip to Texas next…Thursday I think…I'll post it up on Twitter and Tumblr. So, just for your information, I probably won't have Internet access during that time, so I'll just try to get as much written as I can and I'm sorry about that. It's a family reunion, so yay family! :D**

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	7. That's Awkward, Mrs Weasley

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 7 **

To be honest, I didn't really want to talk with Harry about the possibility of Dumbledore resenting us, so I just left the room as soon as Hermione asked to use Hedwig to send a letter to her parents. By the look on Harry's face, I could tell that it was bothering him about twice as much as it was bothering me, but he still didn't want to talk - I could just tell.

It wasn't that I would even expect to be a prefect with Hermione being in my class. She was the obvious choice for the job, but why did Dumbledore pick Ron over Harry? Not that Ron wasn't a good pick, but it just seemed like Harry would be better for the job. Maybe it was just because he didn't want to add any more stress on his shoulders...I don't know. It just didn't make any sense-

"Emily!"

I looked up from where I was walking and saw George standing at the bottom of the steps that I was walking down. He was looking at me with a very concerned expression.

"Are you okay?" he asked as I met him at the bottom.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I shrugged.

"You look like you have a lot on your mind," he said while taking me by the hand. "Do you want to talk?"

I sighed and he walked me into the empty drawing room where we sat down on the very same couch that I had sat in while talking with Sirius. It seemed like I was ending up in this room a lot lately...

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," I sighed. "It just seems like...people are just looking at Harry and me differently now...like we can't be trusted because we're some kind of a joke."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"It's with Dumbledore actually," I said. "Harry told me that he refused to even look his way during his court case and then he wouldn't even choose Harry for a prefect - as dumb of a thing that it is, it still matters to Harry regardless of what he says. I've just been wondering it he's starting to get angry at us for ruining his reputation."

"Emily, I don't know Dumbledore that well," he said. "But I really doubt that he would act that immature about something like that. Besides, if he didn't believe in you two, then why would he still be involved in the Order?"

That did make since, but how did that explain Dumbledore avoiding us? Maybe I had been right originally about Dumbledore being really busy, but something just seemed off about the whole situation. It wasn't like Dumbledore to cut us off from everything like he was doing.

"I don't know, maybe I'm just paranoid..." I sighed and leaned my head on his shoulder. "There is way too much going on right now."

"Maybe it'll be better once we're back in school," he said.

"Wow, is George Weasley suggesting that going to school will solve all of our problems?" I laughed.

"I know, isn't it sickening?" he laughed.

He sat back against the couch and looked around until he decided to lean in and kiss me. It had been a while since we had any time alone and I had almost forgotten what it was like to kiss him. He started to lay me down on the couch under him when someone came into the room.

"Oi - get a room!" Ron said as he looked away.

"Don't be jealous, Prefect," George said as we sat back up. "Besides, we had a room before you came in here."

Ron was already red around the ears, but now his entire face resembled a tomato. Apparently he was taking it to offense that they were making fun of his for his new achievement. I don't understand how this was any different from usual for Ron - Fred and George always made fun of him.

"Mum is back from Diagon Alley with our books and she said that she wants everyone down in the basement," Ron mumbled. "Unless of course you're too busy."

"Maybe we are," George winked and went to kiss me again.

"Let's go," I laughed and stood up. "Sorry Ron."

I couldn't hear what he said, but he continued to mumble as he walked out of the drawing room. Just as George caught up with me and we were about to leave the room, something began to shake in the corner of the room. When I whipped around and looked at it, I saw that it was the desk.

"What is that?" I asked quickly.

"I don't - " he started.

Suddenly Mrs. Weasley came in through the door and looked from both of us to the desk that had now stopped shaking.

"What are you two doing in here," she asked in a suspicious sort of way.

"We were just about to go down to dinner like you asked," George said.

"Right..." she nodded as she continued to eye us suspiciously. "George, can I talk with you privately?"

"Um...sure Mum," he said looking a bit scared. "I'll see you in a minute Emily."

After receiving a look from Mrs. Weasley, I awkwardly left the room without another word. I was still trying to think of what was going on with that desk when I walked into the basement to see an enormous banner that read "CONGRATULATIONS RON AND HERMIONE - NEW PREFECTS!"

Just as I moved around the room, all of the others came in from upstairs and nearly all of them looked like they wanted to gag when they caught sight of the banner that stretched across the room.

"Where's George?" Fred asked.

"Oh, your mum just wanted to have a word with him in the drawing room," I said.

"About what?" Ginny asked.

"I have no idea," I shrugged. "Hey - do you know what is with that desk in there?"

"In the drawing room?" Ginny asked. "I don't know - oh, Mum was telling me earlier that she thinks that something might be in it, but we don't know what it is yet. She's been meaning to ask Mad-Eye about it."

"Yeah, because it just started going berserk in there," I said.

Harry finally walked into the room with Ron and he appeared to be feeling a bit better, but he still did look a little glum. Ron, on the other hand, appeared to have cheered up a lot since I had last seen him in the drawing room.

"Did you get your broom?" I asked him.

"Yeah, it's up in my room," he said excitedly. "But Mum said that I can't open it until after dinner. I can't wait to try it out."

"Do you know if she got you the Cleansweep?" I asked.

"I caught her before she left and she said that's what she got me," he said. "I've never had a new broom before - this is going to be great."

I thought that this would be good for Harry too because he would probably go outside with his broom later and maybe it could take a few things off his mind. At least, that was what I was hoping would happen anyway.

A minute or so later, the room was finally filled with guests. Once everyone had arrived, Mrs. Weasley finally returned to the room with a very embarrassed looking George following behind. When Mrs. Weasley was out of sight, George walked over to me while pulling at the collar of his shirt nervously.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing...just the conversation with Mum," he said. "A bit awkward, that's all..."

"How was it awkward?" I laughed.

"It was mostly because it came out of nowhere," he said.

"Are you going to tell me what she said?" I asked. "I'm not a mind reader."

He looked around and I took note that only Fred and Harry seemed to even notice our existence at the moment. Before saying anything else, he gave a nervous look over at Harry before continuing.

"She was giving me...the 'talk'..." he said. "She heard that noise from the desk...and saw Ron walking away all red-faced and she...er...made assumptions..."

I couldn't help but notice that George kept glancing over at Harry every few seconds and looked as though he was going to run if he even made the slightest move towards him. Harry just kept an eyebrow raised and looked slightly amused.

"Wait, what do you - oh," I said suddenly in realization.

"She said that she doesn't want me staying in a room alone with you while we are in this house," he muttered while looking at the ground. "Something about me being a gentleman and...your virtue...too young..."

He continued to mumble about some other things as Fred burst into laughter and Harry started to chuckle about the whole situation. I don't know what was funnier, the fact that he was making all of this awkward or the look of fear that he had when he looked at Harry.

"Yeah, you should probably listen to her or I think she might kill you," Harry laughed and then suddenly became serious. "Before someone else gets to you."

There was a moment of silence between Harry and George, whose eyes had suddenly became huge. Then, suddenly, George started walking quickly towards a door to the other room.

"Wow, you have serious power right now Potter," Fred laughed. "Did you see his face - he's terrified of you!"

"Good," Harry smiled evilly. "Let's keep it that way."

Without another word, Harry walked over to sit at the table for dinner. Fred and I shared one look of concern/humor and then joined Harry at the table. Soon enough, everyone was sitting at the table talking about everything and nothing.

"Oh, Alastor," Mrs. Weasley called from across the table. "I've been meaning to ask you to take a look at the desk in the drawing room. There has been something in there, but I didn't want to open it in case it was something really dangerous."

"Let me see..." Mad-Eye said while his fake eye suddenly started spinning until it was pointed towards the drawing room. "Ah, I see. That's a boggart - would you like me to get rid of it?"

"Oh no, I'll see to it later," Mrs. Weasley said. "Thank you so much Alastor."

Mad-Eye nodded and then turned back to his conversation with Kingsley who was sitting next to him. Instead of listening in to their conversation, I turned instead to listen to everyone else who seemed to be talking about their chances of being a prefect during their time at school.

"There was no chance that they would have considered me," Tonks laughed.

"Why not?" Hermione asked.

"It's hard to enforce the rules at school when you don't follow them yourself," she said.

"Where you ever a prefect Sirius?" Ginny asked suddenly.

With a roar of laughter, Sirius shook his head as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, I wouldn't have even guessed that he would have been considered based on all of the stories that he used to tell me about his time at school with my father. Their group caused a lot of trouble in their day - I suppose that they were a bit like us. Then again, we usually didn't start trouble on purpose - trouble usually found us instead.

"No, Remus was the good one," Sirius said. "He was made prefect in our fifth year. Of course, in our last year, I do recall James becoming Head Boy. It was a bit shocking, but it all worked out."

"Wasn't our mum Head Girl?" Harry asked.

"That's right," Lupin smiled. "She wasn't as hard on us as she was on everyone else though. She kept us in line as best as she could. That's why I was a bit shocked that Emily here wasn't chosen. Of course, Hermione is perfect for the job, but she reminds me so much of Lily that I would have thought that she would have been considered."

"I don't know," Sirius said. "She has a bit of her father's rebellious side in her too."

For the remainder of the party, everything seemed to go a lot better. At the mention that our dad hadn't been a prefect at his age either, Harry seemed to feel a lot better about not being chosen himself. Of course, I didn't really understand how our father had been made Head Boy when he hadn't been a prefect. Maybe they saw a tremendous amount of improvement with his behavior or something.

As soon as Ron went on about his broomstick again, I went over to talk to Fred and George who seemed to be having a private conversation with Mundungus in the corner of the room. Somehow it seemed like some shady back deal was going on or something. As soon as I stepped over with them, Mundungus stopped his quick whispering and looked up at me like I was something nasty.

"You can trust her mate," George said as he put his arm around my waist.

"She seems like the type that would rat us out," he said suspiciously.

"You're one to talk," I spat back.

Maybe it was because I had taken what he said as a personal insult, but I just didn't want to trust this guy. From what Mrs. Weasley had been saying, Mundungus got himself into a lot of trouble and was a really shady guy. He would do anything for a bit of gold in his pocket. For all of this, I just didn't like him - I just got this uneasy feeling whenever he was around.

"She's my girlfriend," George said. "She already knows what is going on."

"Besides, it was her and her brother that gave us the money to start all of this in the first place," Fred said.

"Fine," he said after a minute. "I'm not paying that much for those things Weasley - "

"Ten Galleons or nothing Fletcher, we had a deal," Fred said. "These things aren't easy to come by."

"But I just don't think that..." he started.

I looked over next to me and saw Harry approaching. He looked hesitant to join in with us, but Fred and George beckoned him over, much to Mudungus's displeasure. It wasn't hard to tell that he didn't like to have an audience while he was making deals with people - no matter what it was. Like he did with me, he got really quiet as soon as he stepped over.

"What did I just say?" Fred asked irritably. "They are both our financial backers for this deal - you can talk in front of them."

"What makes them worth that much Weasley?" he demanded quietly.

"Do you realize how much trouble we went through to get our hands on these?" George said. "This is a Class C Non-Tradeable Substance we're dealing with."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked just as I was about to ask the same thing.

Fred held up one black bag of the many next to him that appeared to have something rattling inside of it. When he opened it slightly so that we could see inside of it, I noticed that there were several black pods in the bag. With the devious smile that I had seen so often on his brother's and his own face, he went on to tell us just what it was.

"Venomous Tentacula seeds," George said with a smile that matched his brother's. "We need them for the Skiving Snackboxes."

"Right..." Harry said, still not fully understanding. "You all might not want to do all of this here though."

"Why not?" Fred asked.

"Yeah, Mum's too busy thinking about the new prefect in the family," George said.

"It isn't her that I was thinking about," Harry said. "Moody could be listening in right now."

I took a look over at Mad-Eye who was talking to Kingsley. Although it appeared that he wasn't listening, I still saw where Harry had a point. You never really know with Mad-Eye. He was so suspicious of everyone and it wouldn't surprise me if he was listening in now. It was probably best that he didn't have knowledge of what was going on in case word got around to either Mr. or Mrs. Weasley about Fred and George's joke shop that they were trying to start. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that Mrs. Weasley would do anything that she could to stop them with their plans because of her disapproval in that sort of business.

On that note, the small group that we had in the corner of the room dispersed quickly after Mundungus handed over the payment that the twins had asked for. Before long, I found myself sitting back in my chair at the table next to Harry. At this point, the party seemed to be dying down a lot and many people appeared to be tired. With one final yawn, Mrs. Weasley announced that she was going to go up to get rid of that boggart before she got too tired. Once she left, I looked around the room and tried to see what everyone was talking about at the moment. Hermione was still going on about elf and werewolf rights with Lupin and Ron was talking with Tonks about his new broom - it seemed like everyone else had already heard about it already.

"I think I have something that will interest the two of you," Mad-Eye said suddenly to us.

I jumped at the sound of his voice, but turned to see that he looked oddly kind in comparison to his usual look of suspicion at everyone. Moments before, he had only been talking to Harry, but now it appeared that he wanted to have a word or two with us both. He put his hand into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a fairly old looking photograph.

"This is the original Order of the Phoenix," he said as he turned the photo towards us. "I found it while I was looking around for my invisibility cloak the other day. Of course, you probably won't recognize a lot of these people given that they are dead..."

It was true. As I looked around at the large group of people, I took note that I hardly recognized all of the people. However, a lot of them did look familiar and some of them were even here today. It was hard to imagine that this group had once been this big. Then again, there was a huge war between now and then, so I would have assumed that a lot of them would have died anyway.

"This is me," he said pointing to the much younger version of himself. "There is Dumbledore, Dedalus Diggle, Marlene McKinnon, and Frank and Alice Longbottom - terrible what happened to them, better dead than in their situation..."

I felt like something dropped inside of me when I saw Neville's parents. It had only been a few days since I had seen them and it seemed like they were completely different people in this picture. Instead of the weak and lost people that I had seen in the hospital, I saw a couple that appeared to be happy and healthier than ever in this photograph. Here, I could see clearly that Neville looked exactly like his mother - something that I couldn't have seen in the hospital because of their frail state. It nearly brought me to tears seeing that, if it wasn't for Voldemort, that Neville could still have the two people in this photograph as they had been then. Before Moody moved on to the next people, I saw Harry looking at me in sorrow.

"I never asked how that visit went Emily," Harry asked me quietly, gaining a look of confusion from Moody.

"What visit?" Mad-Eye asked.

"The other day I went to visit the Longbottoms with Neville," I said while not meeting their eyes. "The Healers there said that they were having a good day for a change..."

"Did they...did they know who any of you were?" Harry asked.

"No..." I said. "Not even their own family..."

"It's terrible, it really is," Moody said. "I remember them before all of this happened and they were some of the nicest people that I ever knew. It really is a shame."

"How was Neville?" Harry asked.

"He...he wasn't doing so well..." I said. "It hasn't been easy for him...he was telling me all about what he has to go through with his parents...I felt so bad for him..."

"It's the family that suffers the most," Moody said in sorrow.

After a moment of silence, Moody continued to show us the rest of the photograph. I had trouble listening because I was too focused on how much I wanted to hurt the people that did that to Neville's parents. They didn't deserve that - no one did. Voldemort and his followers had caused too much damage to people and it needed to be stopped. Now that he was back, I knew that this was only the beginning with families like Neville's and mine. He wasn't going to stop until everyone was dead and Fudge wasn't going to do anything to stop him because he was too scared to believe that he had returned. People were going to be killed because they weren't warned and we had to do something before it was too late.

When I started listening again, Moody had just finished pointing out who everyone was in the picture and what had happened to them. Judging by the look on Harry's face, it was probably best that I hadn't heard everything he had said anyway. The majority of them, as I would guess, were either killed by Voldemort himself or one of his many followers during that time. It was pretty miserable to be honest.

Looking at the picture now, I noticed that our mother and father were there. They were smiling up at us, not knowing what the future would hold with them. Ironically enough, the man that caused it all was standing right in between them. Wormtail looked up at us as innocently as he tried to appear. I felt a great deal of hatred because of the way that my parents seemed to trust him as much as they would any of his other friends. It was saddening to think that they couldn't even put trust in one of their close friends.

"What do you think?" Moody asked cheerfully as though he had just made our day.

"Er...it's um..." I said awkwardly.

I didn't want to tell him, but I didn't really care for the picture that much. Although it was great to see all of them as they were - cheerful and healthy - it was also disturbing at the same time. Just seeing all of the people that had lost their lives and had betrayed us in the end...it was just strange.

"Well, I actually need to finish packing for school tomorrow," Harry said.

Luckily enough, Moody didn't ask anymore questions because Sirius had just come in and asked what it was that he was holding. Harry moved towards the steps and looked back at me with a look that basically asked me to follow with him. Happy enough to escape from any possible questions from Moody, I walked up the steps with my brother.

"That was..." I started quietly.

"Depressing?" he offered. "Disturbing?"

"Both," I muttered.

He was about to keep going, but stopped when we heard a noise coming from the drawing room next to us. We looked at each other in confusion just as I determined that it sounding like a person sobbing. With a bit of hesitation, Harry pushed open the door. Much to my horror, I saw Ron laying on the floor, covered in blood.

I jumped back quickly as my blood ran cold and Harry grabbed onto my arm and shook his head. Just as I felt like I couldn't breathe, I heard Mrs. Weasley's voice coming from the corner of the room.

"R-riddikulus," she said in a sobbing, nearly incoherent way.

With a pop, Ron's body suddenly changed into Bill, who also appeared to be dead. Suddenly it all made sense - this must be the boggart that she was going to get rid of.

"Mrs. Weasley?" I called nervously.

She called the spell again and it suddenly turned into Fred and George. My eyes grew wide and I felt Harry's grip on my hand grow stronger. She continued to call out the spell through her sobs and the boggart turned into all of us before her.

"Mrs. Weasley - stop!" Harry shouted. "Let someone else do it!"

Suddenly, I heard footsteps running towards the room and I heard Lupin call out to us.

"What is going on here?" he demanded.

When he saw the dead bodies on the floor, he quickly jumped in front of the boggart. As soon as it saw that it had changed victims, it immediately changed into the very same image that I had seen when he had taught us about boggarts in our third year at Hogwarts. It was a moon.

"Riddikulus!" Lupin said.

With a pip, the moon in front of him vanished instantly. However, this didn't seem to comfort Mrs. Weasley in the slightest. She still sat in the corner of the room, horrified at what she had seen. Lupin rushed over to comfort her.

"It was just a boggart Molly, it's fine," Lupin said.

She continued to sob and it was then that I noticed that Sirius was standing behind us, looking at the ground where the boggart had been in horror. Next to him stood Mad-Eye, his magical eye zooming all over the room.

"Don't tell Arthur..." she cried. "It's silly of me to act like this because of a boggart...but I'm so scared that something will happen to all of them...every night I have these nightmares that they are going to die..."

"We're better prepared this time Molly," Lupin said. "You shouldn't worry so much..."

Of course, we all knew that everyone was going to worry regardless of how prepared the Order was. Not that I would ever tell Harry, or anyone else for that matter, ever since the night that Voldemort had come back, I had been having very similar nightmares to Mrs. Weasley. I constantly worried that Voldemort would find us and kill him right before me. It wasn't only him though, it was others that I loved too. However many times I had tried to tell myself it wasn't real and just pretended that I hadn't seen those sort of things, I couldn't help but think of how real those sort of things could be. With Voldemort back now, I knew that there was a strong chance that we could all lose someone that we loved...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I really hope to have another chapter up by either Wednesday or REALLY early Thursday morning (I'm leaving my house around 5 in the morning) before I head out to Texas. Unfortunately, I will not be able to have anything posted while I am there, but I will try my best to get as much typed up so that I can put another chapter up when I come back. As I said in the last chapter, I am going to be there from June 28 to July 8, so nothing will be posted while I am there. I hope that you all can understand and will continue to read my story once I come back!**

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	8. Going Back to Hogwarts

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 8**

It was dark. When I looked up in the sky, there wasn't a star in the sky and the moon was blocked by a giant cloud. All around me, I found that I could hardly move because I was surrounded by giant shrubs that only let me move one of two ways. Behind me, I heard a threatening howl that made me move forward in fear.

"Who's there?" I asked shakily.

There wasn't an answer. When I turned the corner, I found myself facing even more shrubbery. However, there appeared to be something at the end of path, but because of the darkness, I couldn't really see what it was. Hesitantly, I started to move forward. Through the shrubbery, I could hear hisses and howls that sent a chill down my spine as I stepped closer to the large object at the end of the path.

As I got closer, I began to smell this odd odor that reeked of decay that made me gag because of the power of it. I had never smelled anything like this before, but I knew that it couldn't be a good sign. Finally, I made it down to the end of the path where the smell was the strongest. Surrounding the thing in front of me was a large swarm of flies that continued to go around my head. Just as I began to swat them away, the cloud in front of the moon moved, letting light hit what was in front of me.

My entire body went stiff and I jumped back and tried to get away from the pile as quickly as I could. Just as I moved my foot back, I found myself on the ground with my leg caught on a root that was stuck in the ground.

I tried to close my eyes to block out the image in front of me, but it was already burned into my eyelids with no escape. The pile in front of me was made up of bodies. The corpses of the many people that I knew. Harry. Hermione. Ron. George. Fred. Neville. Sirius. Lupin. Ginny. Mr. Weasley. Mrs. Weasley. Dumbledore. Snape. Mad-Eye. Kingsley. Tonks. McGonagall. Cedric. The list went on and on.

When I opened my eyes again, unable to get the image out of my head, I was horrified to see all of the people staring at me, the blood still oozing out of their bodies making the air reek even more. I struggled against the root that kept me in place as much as I could, but my foot wouldn't budge. I frantically started to pull at it as I looked back to the pile where I saw it growing larger. From above, the bodies began to pour out of the sky. They were all people that I recognized from school or elsewhere. My eyes grew wide as the Dursleys fell one by one into the pile, their bodies mangled and bloody. Suddenly a huge mass of people began to add to the pile and I struggled even more to get myself away as I saw it getting closer to me.

I felt tears roll down my face as I tried to force my foot out of place. Just as I was about to get out, something fell right next to me. It was Draco Malfoy - his eyes staring into mine as the blood came falling from his mouth. I don't think I'd ever screamed louder in my life.

I screamed and cried as the pile increased even more and began to pull me into it. I found myself surrounded and covered in the bodies of people that I loved and I tried to push them away, but there wasn't any stopping it. When I looked up, I found myself suddenly forced into silent horror as I found myself face to face with a pair of blood red eyes that were staring right down into my soul. With a cruel, horrible laugh, Voldemort stepped back and let me finally become buried in death.

"Emily!"

"No!" I screamed. "Stop - PLEASE!"

"Emily - wake up!"

When I opened my eyes, I didn't see the bodies anymore. I didn't see the maze. I didn't see Voldemort. Instead, I found myself surrounded by Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Fred, and George who all looked pale and scared as they looked down at me.

When I saw them looking at me, alive and well, I found myself holding down tears that were threatening to escape my eyes. I threw my arms around George, who was sitting close to my left and buried my head in his shoulders.

Without saying a word, he hugged me back and whispered into my ear that everything was going to be all right and that it was just a dream. I let his voice be my comfort and I tried to calm myself down, only letting a few tears fall from my eyes.

"What are you all doing?" someone suddenly barked from outside. "You're supposed to be getting yourselves ready - "

When Mrs. Weasley stepped into the room, she suddenly found what everyone was doing and went immediately from angry to worried. She ran over to me and put her hand on my shoulder and looked at me with the deepest concern.

"Everyone, you all can go," she said. "You need to get your things downstairs - let me talk to Emily."

Everyone looked hesitant to leave, but eventually they went around us and out of the door to get their suitcases down the stairs. When they were gone, Mrs. Weasley turned back to me and gave me a big hug.

"Are you okay Emily?" she whispered.

"I'm fine," I said quietly. "It was just a dream, that's all..."

"I understand," she said.

We sat there for a minute with her arms around me in a motherly embrace. It was actually comforting to have her there with me right now because I knew that she had gone through the same thing. Although I had many nightmares before about my friends and family dying, it had never felt as real as the one that I had just had.

"I'm going to start packing my things..." I said as I began to stand up once she had released me.

"Are you sure that you're okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine once I get to doing something else," I said as I reached for my suitcase. "It'll help get my mind off of things..."

She nodded slowly and then left the room hesitantly once I began to pack some things away. Before long, I had pushed the dream out of my head as I began to think of all of the things that I needed for school. When I had finished up, I knew things were back to normal as I heard Mrs. Weasley's angry shouts from downstairs after I heard a loud thumping noise from below.

"YOU COULD HAVE SERIOUSLY INJURED HER YOU IDIOTS!" she shouted.

Of course, with all of this noise, she wasn't the only one shouting. With her yelling, she had awoken Sirius's mother who was shouting her usual messages about how we were all filth living in her beautiful home. Obviously she hadn't seen the house lately - it was a wonder that Sirius had a house-elf living there with all of that mess.

After I heard the thumping, I grabbed my luggage and Hoot's cage quickly and raced down the stairs as quickly as I could to see what was going on. When I got there, I saw Mrs. Weasley whacking her two twin boys with a newspaper as they carried their luggage towards the door. Next to her mother, Ginny looked like she had just been whacked in the head with a bludger.

"What happened?" I asked.

"They bewitched their trunks to go down the stairs," Ginny puffed. "Of course, I don't think that they really expected anyone to be in their way on the way down the stairs."

"They knocked her down the staircase," Mrs. Weasley said angrily. "I don't understand why they feel the need to wave their wands for everything!"

She angrily murmured some other things as she began to patch up some of the wounds that Ginny received from toppling down the staircase before she moved back to rushing everyone around.

"Emily - you are a saint for putting up with them..." she muttered before yelling up the stairs. "EVERYONE GET DOWN HERE NOW BEFORE WE'RE LATE!"

Before long, we were all piled around the door ready to go off to King's Cross Station. Naturally, we were running a bit behind like we usually were when we headed off to Hogwarts. This time, however, I was shocked to see just how many people were going.

"Are you feeling any better?" George asked me as he picked his luggage back up.

"Never better," I said with a smile.

He gave me a kiss just as Mad-Eye barged through and rolled his one human eye at us while passing. Apparently he was in a bad mood today. Then again, it was a rare sight to see him any different than that.

"Okay, let's get moving," Mad-Eye grunted.

Just as some of the others piled into the room, I noticed a very large dog jump into the mix and Mrs. Weasley began to scold him immediately.

"Dumbledore said that you aren't allowed to go," she said, but was ignored completely by Sirius who seemed happier than ever. "Fine, but it's your own fault if your caught."

"Why is everyone going with us?" I asked George.

"It's because of me," Fred said with an eye roll as he walked up to us. "It's for you and Harry of course. Why else would the guard be coming?"

Harry gave me a look as he stepped out of the door to show that he wasn't exactly fond of having the guard accompany us to the train either. It felt like we were a couple of freaks who couldn't manage themselves without extra help. As if we didn't get enough looks without them...

About twenty or so minutes later, we were standing in between platforms nine and ten getting ready to go. One by one, we filed in through the barrier and we were standing in front of the huge, red train titled "Hogwarts Express" on it. Due to the small amount of time that we had until take off, we quickly said our goodbyes.

"See you later," Tonks smiled at us as we moved through the crowd of people to board the train. "It was nice meeting you all!"

"Remember, if you want to write to us with any news, just make sure it isn't too specific in case it gets intercepted," Moody said.

I was about to run off to the train when I heard a small wine coming from an animal below me. Sirius was nudging my leg and he started wagging his tail when I took notice. When I looked around to see if anyone noticed him, I started to worry. What if there were any Death Eaters here? They would surely recognize his disguise.

I kneeled down to him and gave him a hug and patted his head a few times. Although I thought it was good for him to get out of the house, I couldn't help but worry for his safety. But knowing him, I knew that he could care less about what he was supposed to do.

"You stay out of trouble," I said quietly to him. "Listen to Dumbledore - even if you don't like it, understand?"

He looked at the floor and then nodded his head slightly. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that he would have put up some sort of argument or rolled his eyes if he was still in his human form.

"See you later - I'll write to you," I said as I stood back up and jumped on the train just as it was about to take off.

Through the open windows nearby, I watched the guard until they disappeared from sight before I walked off to find the compartment where everyone was already sitting. Instead, I found that Harry was walking alone at the end of the rows. Where were Ron and Hermione? Had they found a compartment without Harry?

When I went to walk toward him, I ran into Fred and George who were walking the opposite direction. Where were they going? As if he read my mind, George spoke up.

"Do you mind if I sat with Lee?" he asked. "We have some things that I'd like to talk about."

"You have go ask?" Fred snorted.

"Shut it," George snapped.

"You're just jealous," I smirked and he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's fine - I'll see you at Hogwarts."

"Love you babe," he smiled and gave me a small kiss.

"Love you too," I smile.

"Oh my god, gag me with a spoon," Fred muttered and made a gagging noise.

George rolled his eyes and I laughed before they moved down the aisle into Lee's compartment.

"Emily!" someone called from behind me just as I caught up with Harry.

I turned around and found that Neville was walking behind me carrying his luggage in one hand and Trevor in the other.

"Hey," I smiled. "I'm surprised Trevor hasn't gotten away from you yet."

"Don't think he hasn't tried to," Neville said while looking down at his disgruntled toad. "Where are you two sitting?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "It seems like it's full everywhere I look."

"Here, there's room in this one down here," Ginny called to us.

Neville's face suddenly fell and he looked like he would rather sit anywhere else other than there.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Where did Ron and Hermione go - maybe we should sit with them," Neville said. "I don't want to sit with Loony Lovegood..."

"Ron and Hermione are sitting with all of the other prefects," Harry said.

"Who is Loony Lovegood?" I asked.

Ginny walked up to us to see what was going on and she rolled her eyes when she heard the name that I used. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it wasn't really her name and that it was really an insult.

"Don't be silly," Ginny said. "Let's go."

Together, we all made our way down the the final compartment in the train where only a single girl was sitting. I raised an eyebrow when I saw that she was reading a magazine upside down. Now I see why they called her Loony...

"Hey Luna, do you mind if we sit here?" Ginny asked.

Luna looked up from her book and stared at us as though we were some kind of foreign species. She looked at us each individually and a smile came across her face when she saw Harry and me. She nodded her head and then went back to reading her magazine without another word.

"Here we go..." Neville muttered.

Harry and Neville took all of the luggage and set it up in the luggage rack above our heads before they took a seat. Once we were all seated, Luna looked back up at us all with that same expression as before. It almost seemed like she was someone who was constantly zoning out everywhere she looked and she also rarely blinked. It was really odd that you could tell that there was something off about someone just by looking at them. Now that she had set her magazine down, I noticed for the first time that she had a necklace made out of corks and she had her wand stuck behind her ear.

There was an awkward moment of silence where she began to stare at Harry and me with extreme interest. I just coughed and looked over at Neville who was raising his eyebrow at Luna.

"You are Harry Potter," she said in a very dreamy sounding voice to Harry.

"I know..." Harry said while pulling at the collar of his shirt.

"And you are Emily Potter," she said when turning to me.

"Sure," I said with an awkward smile.

"I don't know who you are," Luna said when turning to Neville who looked slightly relieved that she didn't, but at the same time seemed creeped out that she was talking to him in the first place.

"I'm nobody," Neville said.

"No you're not," Ginny said quickly. "This is Neville Longbottom."

Neville gave an awkward smile before looking away from Luna's dreamy gaze. It was very strange, but it seemed like she was in her own little world. In a way, I had to respect that because she could obviously care less about what was going on around her. I wish I could be like that sometimes...

"And you must be Luna," I said.

"Luna Lovegood," Luna said with a smile.

"Luna is in my year," Ginny said. "But she's in Ravenclaw."

Luna smiled at us again and I suddenly got that feeling of being an exhibit at the zoo again. Although a lot of people tend to stare at Harry and me, it was somehow different with her. Then, after a moment, she picked up her magazine and started to read it upside sown again.

"Right..." I said awkwardly. "So how was your birthday Neville? Did you get what I sent you?"

"It was great, yes the book was fantastic by the way," he smiled. "Thanks a lot, it had a lot of facts that I didn't know about plants. I liked the letter too, Gran thought that it was great when she read it."

Before his birthday, I received a letter from his grandmother saying that Uncle Algie had bought a 'Mimbulus mimbletonia' for Neville for his birthday. She only told me this because she wanted to know if I could find a book that included facts about the plant for it. Luckily, after sending letters to several bookstores, I found one that had that one along with a ton of other rare plants in it. Aside from that, I also made up a large letter talking about some of the things that we used to do when we were younger and mentioned that he was my best friend and I wouldn't know what to do without him. It was true and I figured that then was as good of an opportunity as any to tell him. Other than Harry of course, I knew that I could always count on Neville. Sure I had a lot of other best friends, but I figured that it would mean a lot to tell him that. Along with the letter, I found a picture of us from first year that Hagrid had taken of us and gave it to him.

"You finished the book already?" I asked in surprised.

"Er...yes," Neville said. "I really liked it. Did I ever show you what my Great Uncle Algie got me - I know that she told you about it, but did she ever show you?

"No, I never saw it," I said.

He stood up and looked through his bag for a while before he pulled out a plant that looked like a misshapen cactus with boils coming out of it.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"It's called Mimbulus mimbletonia," Neville said. "They are incredibly rare plants. I'm really glad that Emily got me that book or I don't think that I would know how to care for it because I hardly knew much about it before. I can't wait to show it to Professor Sprout..."

"So...what does it do?" Harry asked while looking at the plant in a sort of disgusted and confused way.

I had to admit that the plant was sort of creepy looking because of all of the boils and it didn't really look all that special. But at the same time, I knew that it meant a lot to Neville and I tried to hide that it creeped me out so he wouldn't feel bad.

"It does a lot of things," Neville said excitedly. "For instance, it has an amazing defense mechanism. Do you want to see it?"

Harry and Ginny looked at one another and looked hesitant to answer.

"Sure," I said.

He handed Trevor over to me, but he quickly jumped out of my hands. Luckily enough, Harry caught the toad mid jump so that it couldn't get away. Sometimes I wondered why Neville even kept the toad - obviously it didn't want to stay with him.

Neville grabbed a quill out of his bag and moved towards the cactus looking plant with some hesitation. At this point, everyone in the compartment was paying close attention. Even Luna was looking over her magazine to see what he was doing.

Just as I went to get a closer look, the quill made contact with the plant and it appeared to have some sort of goo explode from it's pores. Because of this unexpected sort of defense, my reactions weren't quick enough and the goo went all over my hands, face, and torso. It smelled disgusting and was covering the entire compartment.

"I - I am so sorry," Neville said quickly. "I didn't know that it would do that - I've never done it before! D-don't worry, it isn't poisonous."

Even though I was lucky enough to not get any of that goo in my mouth, Harry didn't get the same luck. He was spitting a good portion of it out onto the ground in disgust as he struggled to keep a hold of Trevor. At that very moment, the compartment doors opened up and I saw that it was Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw Seeker.

"Oh - this must be a bad time," she said awkwardly as she looked around the room. "I just wanted to say hi..."

Everyone in the compartment could see that she hadn't stopped by to say hello to us because she had been looking at Harry the entire time. By the startled and red faced look on Harry, I could tell that something was up.

"Hello," Harry said as he attempted to wipe the sap off of his face.

"Well, I guess I'll talk to you all later then," she smiled and closed the door behind her.

I raised an eyebrow at Harry once she left and he tried to give me an innocent smile, but I knew him better than that. Before I had a chance to say anything, Ginny quickly waved her wand and cleared the room of all of the goo.

"Thanks," I said, feeling much cleaner now than before. "So Harry...what's up?"

He tried to avoid my gaze and became suddenly interested in his shoes when he answered me.

"I don't know what you mean..." he murmured as his face went a bit redder.

"Sure you don't," I laughed and rolled my eyes.

I turned back to Neville who gave me a smirk that told me that I wasn't the only one that had picked up on the fact that Harry obviously fancied Cho. Then, with a look back at his plant, he suddenly looked sorrowful again.

"I'm really sorry..." he said. "I wouldn't have done that here if I would have known..."

"I thought you read the book that Emily gave you," Ginny said. "Wouldn't it have told you that?"

"I must have missed that..." Neville said as he put it back into his schoolbag so that it wouldn't do that again. "Sorry..."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's all clean now."

"Here is your toad," Harry said as he handed Trevor back.

"Right - thanks," Neville said.

When I looked back around the compartment, everyone seemed like they didn't want to talk because of the lingering smell of the goo that smelled a bit like manure. However, Luna didn't really seem to take note of it because she had gone back to her magazine.

This was going to be a long ride...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! Sorry for any spelling errors by the way, I didn't get a chance to look through it. Now, I'm not going to be able to access a computer until July 8th, so I won't be updating until sometime around then. I'm not sure if I'll have Internet access in Texas, but you all can check my Twitter or Tumblr or maybe just send me a message on here if you want to know when the next update will be and I'll tell you as soon as I can. I hope you all will keep reading my story!**

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	9. The Woman in Pink

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 9**

It was nearly an hour before we saw Hermione and Ron in our compartment. When they arrived, I was surprised they seemed almost relieved to be with us rather than in the compartment with all of the other prefects. I guess that it wasn't all that it cracked up to be. Then again, they still had a gleam in their eyes that told me that they were still thrilled to have been given the position.

"Who were the other prefects?" I asked once Hermione had explained that there are two in each house.

"Take a guess who the Slytherin ones are," Ron sneered while rolling his eyes in annoyance.

"Malfoy?" Harry grumbled.

"Yeah, and that snotty girl Pansy Parkinson," Hermione said.

"Didn't you get in a fight with her in first year?" Neville asked me.

"Yeah," I said. "She deserved what she got..."

"Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott are the Hufflepuff prefects and Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw," Hermione said.

When the Ravenclaw prefects were mentioned, Luna Lovegood looked back over her magazine with her usual dreamy expression. For the first time, I took note that she was reading what was called the Quibbler. I had never heard of that before...then again, I hadn't heard of a lot of things.

"You went to the Yule Ball with her Harry," she said suddenly as she moved the magazine from her face.

Everyone in the compartment went silent and looked over at Luna with the utmost curiosity. Well, they actually appeared to be a bit more creeped out than anything else, but I was a bit curious. It really made me start to wonder how many people actually paid that much attention to us even though we didn't really know who they were.

"Er…yes, I did take her," Harry said awkwardly.

"How did she know that?" Neville whispered to me.

"She wasn't happy at all," Luna said with complete honesty. "She said that you never danced with her. Actually, she said that you hardly spoke to her at all."

"Right…" Harry said while pulling at his shirt collar in embarrassment.

Without another word, Luna pulled back up the Quibbler and disappeared under it once more. There was a moment of silence in our compartment as we all stared at each other in mixed amusement and wonder at this girl that sat with us. Although she did come off as sort of creepy and lost, I couldn't help but feel like she was sort of interesting. I had a feeling that I was the only one in the group that thought so.

"So anyway," Ginny said after a moment. "What did you two do in the prefects compartment?"

"They just told us what our job was," Hermione said. "We have to patrol the corridors every so often to make sure that no one is breaking the rules."

"I really hope that we catch a Slytherin in the act," Ron said while rubbing his hands together. "I would love to give one of them detention - imagine if we caught Crabbe and Goyle!"

"We aren't supposed to abuse our power Ronald," Hermione rolled her eyes. "Thinking about rule breakers - where are Fred and George?"

"They went to Lee's compartment," I told her.

"Oh no…" Hermione sighed. "I hope that they aren't planning anything too awful this year. I would hate to have to write them up…"

"You have fun with that," Ron scoffed. "I wouldn't write them up if they were doing something right in front of me - imagine what they would do to me?"

"You aren't supposed to bend the rules for anyone Ron," Hermione said. "Even if they are your brothers - it's for their own good!"

"Aren't you dating George Weasley?" Luna suddenly asked.

Everyone stopped and stared at the mysterious blonde in the corner again. To be honest I had nearly forgot that she had been sitting with us because of how quiet she gets. Maybe that's why she randomly speaks up every now and then - just reminding us that she was still there.

"Yes…" I said.

"I've read some of the awful things that they say about you in the paper," she said while her eyes began to glaze over. "But I don't believe that you are a promiscuous sort of girl…"

"Er…thanks," I said with a strained smile.

She gave me a small smile and then returned to her magazine. It was then that something on it caught my eye. All I saw were the words _SIRIUS - BLACK AS HE'S PAINTED?_

Immediately, I became interested in this strange magazine. The title of the article seemed to show that the editor probably doesn't think of Sirius as badly as everyone else did. Maybe that's why I had never heard of this Quibbler before - it must have unpopular opinions in it. That was a lot to assume though…

"May I see that for a moment Luna?" I asked.

Harry cast me a strange side-ways glance, probably wondering why I had taken interest in a magazine that was being read upside down. Luna gave me a smile again and willingly handed over what she was reading. Harry, who moved over so that he could see what I was looking at, immediately caught on to why I had wanted to read this.

Underneath the title, I was baffled by what the first sentence said.

_Notorious mass murderer or innocent singing sensation?_

Wait - what? Just the image of Sirius being a "singing sensation" made me want to laugh out loud. Losing interest in what it had to say, I passed the article on to Harry who read the article in silence. I turned back to Neville who seemed to be staring at Luna as though she had a third eye. She was staring off into space just near the door and I almost wanted to say something to her. But I decided to leave her in her own little world.

"Nothing good?" Ron asked me.

"I just thought I saw a name I recognized," I said.

"There's never anything good in that magazine anyway," Hermione laughed. "It's the Quibbler - everyone knows that nothing in it is worth the read."

"My father is the editor," Luna said in a surprisingly threatening tone.

Hermione immediately flushed under Luna's suddenly angry tone. It came to my attention that, even when Luna seemed like her mind wasn't really in the room, she was always listening. I also realized that she could be really threatening when she wanted to be.

"I'll have that back now," Luna said bluntly to Harry.

"Sure," Harry murmured and handed it back to its owner.

As soon as she found her page, she flipped it upside down and began to read some more as she slumped down into the chair. Hermione's face was still red from embarrassment when I caught someone's eye outside of the door with two people I recognized as Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

Draco Malfoy.

"Oh, look what we have here," Malfoy said as he looked at us like he hadn't noticed our presence before. "Seems like the Potters have found someone as crazy as themselves."

He was looking from Luna to the two of us. Seeing as Luna stopped paying attention because of her anger, that or she simply didn't care, she had no response to this insult.

"Cut it out," I warned.

"Or what Potter?" Draco scoffed. "You don't have any power over me."

"I really could care less," I said honestly. "I'd much rather you just stay out of my life."

"I wouldn't want a filthy half-blood like you hanging around me anyway," he laughed.

"It's funny you say that _after _she rejected you," Neville said coldly.

"Says the one that's been trying to get with her since first year," Draco snorted. "Get the hint Longbottom - she isn't interested."

"What do you want Malfoy?" I asked in annoyance. "Did you just come here because you have nothing better to do than insult us?"

"Insulting you is just so easy, it nearly comes naturally," Draco said while adjusting his tie. "But, being as I am a prefect, I have better things to be doing right now. Just watch your backs if you know what's good for you."

"You think that we find a twitchy little ferret like you threatening?" Harry laughed.

"We'll just have to see about that," Draco narrowed his eyes. "By the way Potter - how does it feel being second best to Weasley?"

"Cut it out Malfoy," Hermione demanded.

The three Slytherin boys laughed before they walked away from our compartment. It's weird to say that I will never fully understand that boy. One minute he'll be insulting me in any way he can and the next moment he'll be just as friendly as can be. However, when he does act friendly towards me, no one else is ever around. He told me once before that he can never be friendly to a Potter around his friends - it just isn't acceptable. He claims that he doesn't mind me as much as Harry, who he says he absolutely detests, but I just don't understand. Draco is such a freaky little ferret…

"Ignore him," Ron said. "He's just being a prat because he thinks he can get away with it now."

"Ron, he was a prat _before_ he was made a prefect," I said. "This just makes him a prat with some power."

We all laughed and then decided that it would be best to get changed into our Hogwarts robes. By the time we were all dressed, the train had come to a stop and we all grabbed our luggage and made our way out of the train. As soon as we stepped out, I caught up with George who was waiting for me at the exit.

"Hey," he smiled. "Have a good trip?"

"You could say that," I said sarcastically.

He gave a short laugh and we were both alarmed by a female's voice a few yards away that was calling students towards her.

"First years over here!" she called.

"Where's Hagrid?" Harry asked as he caught up to us.

"No idea…" I murmured.

In a crowd, we all moved towards the carriages that took us towards the school. Once it was finally our turn to board onto the carriage, I was alarmed when I saw that something was in front of it. These things appeared to have the shape of a horse, but they had enormous black wings on them and looked like they had been dead for many years. The dark black skin that was on them seemed to be stretched over their skeletons so that you could see every bone that was in their body. When they turned their heads towards us, I noticed their fully white eyes staring at us.

"Why don't they just have them pull themselves like usual?" I asked. "These horses are a bit creepy looking, wouldn't you say?"

"What horses?" George asked.

"Right there," Harry pointed. "What do you think they are - I've never seen them anywhere before."

"What are you two talking about?" Neville asked.

"It's pulling itself like it always has," Hermione said while looking completely confused.

"But - " Harry started.

I put a hand on his arm and shook his head. If they were just going to act like they didn't know what we were talking about, then we could just get on the carriage. However, I had this odd feeling that they really didn't know what we were talking about - how could anyone ignore these demonic-looking creatures in front of us?

"How do they not see them?" Harry asked. "It doesn't make any sense…"

"Are you two okay?" George asked with concern.

"Yeah…" I said. "Just get into the carriage…"

Once we were seated, I noticed that Luna Lovegood had followed us into our carriage. She had a look of understanding on her face as she looked from Harry to me.

"Do you see them?" I asked quietly.

"Yes," she said in a dreamy voice. "You two aren't mad, don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."

Harry raised an eyebrow and looked at me. If we were just as sane as she was, then I was seriously concerned for our sanity…

Instead of bringing up the horses again, I felt that it would be better to change the subject to something else. I would much rather have people believe I was sane as opposed to being compared to Luna…

"Where do you think Hagrid is?" I asked everyone as the carriage began to move.

"I don't know," Hermione said. "Maybe he's just sick or something."

"I hope that he's okay…" Harry said.

"I think that it would be better if we kept Professor Grubbly-Plank," Luna said. "Hagrid isn't that great of a teacher if you ask me."

"No one asked you," Ron said bluntly.

"True," Luna nodded without looking insulted in the least.

The rest of the ride we were all silent as we watched Hogwarts grow closer. Somehow, Hogwarts seemed to have grown darker since my first year here. I still remember the boat ride when we first saw this grand castle and being completely amazed by its magical appearance. Even though I still look at Hogwarts as my home, I had to take note that something about the place seemed less welcoming. Maybe it was just that I knew that the people there weren't going to be as cheerful as they had been to meet us before. Ever since I boarded the train, I tried to prepare myself for the reactions people were going to give us this year. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that they weren't going to be as welcoming.

Finally, the carriage came to a stopping point and we all stepped out and walked into the Entrance Hall of the castle. When we stepped into the Great Hall, my eyes immediately went up to the table where the teachers sat - there was no sign of Hagrid.

"Where is he?" Hermione asked.

"I'm sure that he's fine," George said. "He's probably ill or something…"

I wasn't going to take that for an answer though. Instead, when everyone else sat down, I made my way over towards the table to ask someone about it, but I was stopped when someone grabbed onto my shoulder.

"What are you up to Miss Potter?" a familiar droning voice asked.

When I turned around, Snape raised an eyebrow.

"I wanted to know where Hagrid is," I said. "I was going to ask Professor McGongall, but maybe you know?"

"He's out on business," Snape said.

"Business?" I asked. "What kind of business?"

"The kind that is none of your business," he said.

"Where is he?" I demanded. "I have a right to know."

"I'm sure that he'll tell you all about it when he returns," he said while rubbing his temple. "You really shouldn't worry - "

"_Hem, hem_."

I suddenly whipped around and saw where the annoying, interrupting noise had come from. It was a woman who had a strange resemblance to a toad. Dressed in all pink, I could tell that there was something odd about this woman.

"Is there a problem dear?" she asked in a high-pitched voice.

I looked from side to side to see if she was talking to me or not. Snape looked slightly amused and stepped up next to me so that he could face this woman who was apparently addressing me.

"Not that I know of," I said awkwardly.

"Then I believe that you may take a seat," she said with a sickly smile. "I don't believe that there should be any reason that you need to address your Potions Master when the term hasn't even started."

"I was just asking where my Care of Magical Creatures teacher was," I said. "I don't believe that is any concern of yours."

"It's not any concern of yours either," she said quickly. "Now I suggest that you join your fellow students."

"She isn't bothering me Dolores," Snape sighed. "She was merely asking me a question - "

"Well I believe that the conversation is over now," she said with a smile plastered on her face.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" I asked without hiding my annoyance.

"To you I am Professor Umbridge - your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," she said in an all to proper tone. "And of course, you must be Emily Potter."

"Ah, I see they've recruited another _fabulous_ one of you," I said sarcastically.

"I'm happy to be here," she said, obviously not catching on to my sarcasm. "I hope to stay here and keep you all on a stable schedule - I do realize that your previous teachers weren't the best."

"Well I look forward to your class," I said, my mouth practically dripping with sarcasm as I formed a fake smile.

Snape, who was still standing next to me, looked from Umbridge to me with the utmost amusement. Even though she hadn't picked up on my sarcasm, it seemed that he did.

"This should be an…interesting year…" he said under his breath.

"What was that Severus?" she asked.

"Nothing important," he said. "Emily, would you be so kind as to join your fellow Gryffindors?"

"Do you call all of your students by their first names Severus?" Umbridge asked. "I didn't realize that I was in that sort of school."

Snape raised his eyebrow and looked like he was doing everything in his power to not throw back one of his usual icy retorts. I wonder what was holding him back - he usually didn't care who he was speaking to. That made me wonder even more who this woman was - she must be even worse than I thought.

"Excuse me - Miss Potter, return to your seat," Snape said through gritted teeth.

"Yes sir," I said while narrowing my eyes at Umbridge.

As I made my way back over to the Gryffindor table, I began to dread the thought of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Even though our conversation was very short, I could already tell that this wasn't going to be a teacher that I cared for. She seemed to be dictating and far too proper for my liking. Something behind that fake smile of hers just gave me the feeling that she was going to be horrible.

"What was that about?" Ron asked as I sat down next to Harry and George.

"I was asking where Hagrid was," I said. "They said that he was out on business or something - but Snape wouldn't tell me what it was."

"No, I don't mean that," Ron rolled his eyes. "You always talk to that git - what did Umbridge want?"

"How do you know who that is?" I asked.

"She works for Fudge at the Ministry," Harry said. "She was one of the people at my trial."

"She works for the Ministry?" I asked in disgust. "What is she doing here then?"

"I don't know, that's what we were just talking about," Harry said.

"This can't be good…" Hermione said worriedly as she looked up at the table at the only woman in pink.

"Was she awful when you spoke to her?" Ron asked.

"She's…strange," I said. "She tries to act like she's being nice to you, but it's obvious that she's being rude. I don't like her already and I hardly know the woman…"

"Dad's spoken of her before," George said. "I heard that she practically lives and breathes her work at the Ministry."

"I heard that one time, a dementor tried to kiss her," Fred said in a mysterious tone. "And it _died_!"

"Shut it," George said as he whacked his brother on the arm.

Just then, Professor McGongall brought the Sorting Hat and a stool forward and the first years entered the room. All of the first years stumbled and tripped into the room and looked amazed at everything around them. It seemed like a lifetime ago when I had been the same way. Everyone in the room went silent once they reached the front of the room. For a moment, the room was completely still when the hat suddenly burst into song. **(FYI: This song is directly from the book, so you can just skip over it if you've already read it)**

_In times of old when I was new_

_And Hogwarts barely started_

_The founders of our noble school_

_Thought never to be parted:_

_United by a common goal,_

_They had the selfsame yearning,_

_To make the world's best magic school_

_And pass along their learning._

_'Together we will build and teach!_

_'The four good friends decided_

_And never did they dream that they_

_Might some day be divided,_

_For were there such friends anywhere_

_As Slytherin and Gryffindor?_

_Unless it was the second pair_

_Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?_

_So how could it have gone so wrong?_

_How could such friendships fail?_

_Why, I was there and so can tell_

_The whole sad, sorry tale._

_Said Slytherin, 'We'll teach just those_

_Whose ancestry is purest._

_'Said Ravenclaw, 'We'll teach those whose_

_Intelligence is surest._

_'Said Gryffindor, 'We'll teach all those_

_With brave deeds to their name,_

_'Said Hufflepuff, 'I'll teach the lot,_

_And treat them just the same._

_'These differences caused little strife_

_When first they came to light,_

_For each of the four founders had_

_A house in which they might_

_Take only those they wanted, so,_

_For instance, Slytherin_

_Took only pure-blood wizards_

_Of great cunning, just like him,_

_And only those of sharpest mind_

_Were taught by Ravenclaw_

_While the bravest and the boldest_

_Went to daring Gryffindor._

_Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest,_

_And taught them all she knew,_

_Thus the houses and their founders_

_Retained friendships firm and true._

_So Hogwarts worked in harmony_

_For several happy years,_

_But then discord crept among us_

_Feeding on our faults and fears._

_The houses that, like pillars four,_

_Had once held up our school,_

_Now turned upon each other and,_

_Divided, sought to rule._

_And for a while it seemed the school_

_Must meet an early end,_

_What with duelling and with fighting_

_And the clash of friend on friend_

_And at last there came c morning_

_When old Slytherin departed_

_And though the fighting then died out_

_He left us quite downhearted._

_And never since the founders four_

_Were whittled down to three_

_Have the houses been united_

_As they once were meant to be._

_And now the Sorting Hat is here_

_And you all know the score: I sort you into houses_

_Because that is what I'm for,_

_But this year I'll go further,_

_Listen closely to my song:_

_Though condemned I am to split you_

_Still I worry that it's wrong,_

_Though I must fulfill my duty_

_And must quarter every year_

_Still I wonder whether Sorting_

_May not bring the end I fear._

_Oh, know the perils, read the signs,_

_The warning history shows,_

_For our Hogwarts is in danger_

_From external, deadly foes_

_And we must unite inside her_

_Or we'll crumble from within_

_I have told you, I have warned you . . ._

_Let the Sorting now begin. _

_**(Directly from the book - all rights to J.K. Rowling)**_

Everyone in the room was silent, not knowing how to react to this new song that the Sorting Hat had come up with. Normally it was a rather cheerful account on how the school was created - nothing like this.

"Wasn't that pleasant?" I scoffed.

"What was that about?" Neville asked in confusion.

"A bit cheerful, wouldn't you say?" Ron said in sarcasm.

Before I had stepped into the castle today, I had thought that things seemed a bit different. Now, I knew that I wasn't the only one with that mind set. Things were not going to be the same this year…

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up sometime from Wednesday to Friday, just so you know. Now that they are back at Hogwarts, I plan to be throwing in a lot more things that didn't happen in the book! Again, thanks for reading!**

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	10. The Gossiping Gryffindor Girls

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 10**

Once that long, depressing song of the Sorting Hat's ended, Professor McGongall stepped up to call out the names of the first years for their Sorting. With each name called, I couldn't help but feel sorry for each one of these new children. I couldn't imagine having to walk into their first day of school with the times being like they were. Of course, it couldn't really be said that our first year was all that normal, but it was like they walked in on all of it without a warning and without any sort of knowledge of what was going on. It was sad…

After everyone had been sorted, Dumbledore stood up and welcomed everyone to the school with the start of the term feast. As usual, it was filled with the greatest food that the school had to offer - which I was constantly reminded of the fact that it was actually made by the house-elves by Hermione.

"That song was really strange…" Hermione said. "It almost seemed like it was trying to warn us of something."

"It wouldn't be the first time," Nearly Headless Nick said from behind me.

I turned around and watched as Nick's ghost drew closer to us - a look of concern all across his transparent face.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Well, it isn't often," Nick shrugged. "But every now and then, the Hat gives the school of warning of terrible times to come. And it's always the same advise - just stick together!"

"Why is everyone listening to the Hat anyway?" Ron asked. "How would it know if something bad is headed our way?"

"It does stay in Dumbledore's office, so it must hear the things that are going on," Nick said.

"That's true…" Harry said while taking a look up at the headmaster. "I wonder how much he actually hears…"

With that, Sir Nicholas floated off to talk to some of the other students about nothing in particular. To be honest, I only had one thing on my mind at the moment and that was what was really going on in this school. Dumbledore was always busy with something - but with what? And what was with this new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher anyway? Why would Dumbledore hire someone from the Ministry when they seem to be one of the biggest enemies at the moment? Or was this all Fudge's fault? Did he force Dumbledore to hire this horrible woman?

"What's wrong?" George asked me.

"Just…a lot on my mind," I sighed.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"There really isn't much to talk about," I said. "It's mostly just questions that I want answered from Dumbledore…maybe I could talk to him soon…"

For the rest of the meal, I tried to act like everything was okay by just eating some of the food that was set out. During that time, I watched the upper table to see if I could pick any kind of tension up from there about my earlier suspicions. It would make a lot of sense that Fudge had forced Dumbledore to hire this woman - there is no way that he would have chosen to hire a Ministry official with everything that he's trying to do regarding Voldemort.

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, the feast was over and Dumbledore stood up from his seat and stepped forward to give his usual speech.

"Welcome everyone, welcome," he said with a smile. "Now that all of our bellies our full, I have a few announcements to make. To start off with, you should all know that the Forbidden Forest is out-of-bounds to all students - older students should take note of this as well. Our caretaker Mr. Filch would also like everyone to know that magic is not allowed in the corridors. I would like to welcome two new members of our staff - Professor Grubbly-Plank for Care of Magical Creatures and Professor Umbridge for Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Everyone clapped politely aside from myself because I couldn't help but notice how unwelcome they really were. Of course, not many people really minded Professor Grubbly-Plank, but it was apparent on all the teacher's faces that Umbridge wasn't exactly welcome.

"Now, Quidditch try-out will-" Dumbledore started.

"_Hem, hem_," came a familiar sound.

Everyone went silent, including Dumbledore at this noise. When he turned around, the only professor in pink stood up with the same smile from earlier plastered on her toad-like face. It was insane how even the sound of this woman made me irritated when I hardly even knew her. To be honest, I had no interest in knowing her.

"What is going on?" Harry whispered to me.

"I have no idea," I grumbled.

"I think she wants to make a speech," Hermione said under her breath.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," I scoffed.

Hermione was right, that was exactly what she was going to do. Much to Dumbledore's bewilderment, she stepped up to where Dumbledore stood at smiled around at all of us.

"Thank you for those kind words of welcome," she smiled.

I raised an eyebrow and a few people around me chuckled quietly. This lady was such a joke - she wasn't going to last two days in this school if she kept this up. From the upper table, I could see that the teachers were just as surprised by this speech as everyone else was - none of the previous teachers ever gave a speech before. Snape found me looking up and rolled my eyes at Umbridge when he saw me. I gave him a small smile as he turned back and pretended to actually care about what she was saying.

"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance…" she started.

"Yeah, I've heard enough," George muttered next to me.

"You could say that again," I chuckled quietly as I turned my attention to everyone else at my table.

Instead of actually listening to the speech like Hermione seemed to be doing, I decided to listen to Neville when he pulled out that plant of his again. This time, he was just whispering over some of the things that he had to do for upkeep on it and how it was really rare and that Professor Sprout would probably make a lesson out of it.

"What does it do?" George asked in a low-toned voice.

"Apparently when you try to touch it, it just sprays this nasty goo all over you," I said.

"Yeah, that's what happened while we were in the train," Neville whispered. "It's a defense mechanism that it has…"

"A nasty one," I said. "But it is effective, I'll give it that."

"What is the goo like?" George asked with interest.

"It's green and thick," I said quietly. "And it smells a lot like some sort of manure - wait, why?"

George had a sort of mischievous smile on his face that I had seen so many times before. He was planning something. Something bad…

"No reason, just wondering," he smirked.

"Right," I said sarcastically.

"Am I missing something?" Neville asked.

"He's planning something," I said. "Something that involves his joke shop with Fred."

"It isn't poisonous, is it?" George asked Neville.

"No, not at all," Neville said.

"Would you be willing to donate some of it to a good cause?" George asked with a mischievous smile.

"As long as it won't be used against me," Neville said.

"Then it's a deal?" George asked.

"Sure," Neville smiled.

"Oh no…" I chuckled. "What-"

"_Hem, hem_."

I looked up suddenly and noticed a pair of tiny black eyes staring at me from the front of the room. It was Umbridge and she didn't look happy at all that we were talking. It wasn't like it was only us - several people had broken out into their own conversations and hardly anyone was paying attention to her anymore. Harry, who was sitting next to me, and Ron had both put their heads down and appeared to be asleep - I couldn't blame them at all.

"Thank you," she gave me a fake smile.

She continued with her speech and I turned back to George and Neville who were both silent once more. Neville looked baffled that she had directly silenced us while George looked highly amused.

"This is going to be a good year," he smiled evilly.

Finally, I started to hear some clapping around me that told me that her speech was over. Once she had sat down once more, a baffled looking Dumbledore continued what he was saying before he was interrupted by the toad.

"What was all that about?" Harry asked.

"Were you not listening?" Hermione asked.

"No one was listening except for you," Ron said.

"From what I could tell," Hermione said. "The whole thing just meant that the Ministry is interfering at Hogwarts."

"That was my guess and I didn't even listen," I said. "It wouldn't make since for Dumbledore to hire someone from the Ministry."

"They're keeping an eye out on Dumbledore," Hermione said. "Fudge probably doesn't want him convincing us that You-Know-Who is back."

A few moments later, everyone in the Great Hall stood up to go to their dorms. Because Hermione and Ron were prefects now, they had the duty of showing the first-years the way and they couldn't walk with us. So, Harry, George, Fred, Neville, and I all walked back to the Gryffindor tower without them.

"That woman is going to be awful," Neville said.

"Just imagine how much worse she's going to be when she meets us," Fred nudged his brother, both of them smiling identically.

"About that," George said. "Neville has something that we're going to get from him."

"Really - what is it?" Fred asked both George and Neville.

"It's this pus from this plant that he has," George said. "It's supposed to smell awful…"

For the rest of the trip, the three of them talked about their plans with this while Harry and I walked ahead of them just shaking our heads. It's just funny how excited they get about these sort of things and I can hardly believe that Neville agreed to provide them with this sort of stuff because he had already told us how rare it is.

When we finally made it to the tower, I told everyone goodnight and gave a kiss to George before I went up to my dorms where I found that Lavender and Parvati were already there. When I stepped into the room, I noticed that they suddenly became silent and looked at me like they had never seen me before.

"Hello…" I said quietly as I walked over to where I slept.

"Hi…" Lavender murmured.

It didn't take me a second to determine that they had been talking about me before I had stepped into the room and it became awkwardly quiet as I began to unpack my things to where they usually went in the room. No one said another word until Hermione finally walked into the room.

"Hey Hermione," Parvati said happily. "How were the first years?"

"They weren't bad," Hermione smiled. "I thought that they would be a handful, but they were really quiet and they seemed a bit scared to be honest."

"Were you just showing them around?" Lavender asked.

"Yes, but I felt like I didn't do a very good job," Hermione said. "I wish that they would have asked some questions because I didn't really know what I should tell them."

"They'll figure everything out soon enough," Parvati said.

Maybe I was just over thinking it, but it seemed like they were a lot more welcoming to Hermione than they were to me. They kept asking her questions about her duties as a prefect as I finished unpacking and got ready to go to bed. Throughout their entire conversation, neither Lavender nor Parvati addressed me or even looked at me for that matter. It was like I was some sort of plague that they were trying to avoid.

"You're being awfully quiet Emily," Hermione said.

Lavender and Parvati looked at each other as if they were exchanging a silent word between one another. What was their problem? I hadn't said two words to them since I had stepped into the door.

"Sorry," I said. "I'll be right back."

I stepped out of the room to go into a bathroom nearby, anything to get away from the judgmental stares of the two girls in my dorm. I couldn't be sure, but it really seemed like they didn't want me there. Once I returned, my suspicions were confirmed. I was about to push open the door when I heard their voices from behind the door.

"I don't trust a word that she says," Lavender scoffed. "Her and her brother are only trying to make themselves the center of attention as always - haven't you been reading the paper Hermione?"

"You've known Emily since first year!" Hermione said in disbelief. "She isn't like that - the _Prophet_ is lying!"

"Just because we've shared a room since then doesn't mean that I know her," Lavender said.

"She's one of my best friends," Hermione said. "I know her and she isn't like that at all - the complete opposite actually. Neither of them like the attention."

"So they claim," Lavender said. "It doesn't seem like they go out of their way to stay out of the news."

"It isn't their fault," Hermione said. "They don't ask for the attention."

"Say what you want Hermione, I still don't believe her," Lavender said. "Neither does Parvati."

"That isn't what I said," Parvati defended herself. "I just don't know what to believe. I don't know Emily or Harry all that well, but they don't seem like the type to do that sort of thing. At the same time, they don't have any evidence to prove that they are telling the truth."

"Because they aren't…" Lavender said. "I don't know Emily well, but she seems like a snob - she always gets all of this attention from the press and boys and I think that it's all gone to her head."

"Do you now?" I asked suddenly as I stepped into the room.

Parvati's eyes grew wide and Lavender's face went paler than mine, which is saying something considering I'm a ginger.

"I - I…" Lavender started.

"Funny, you don't seem so brave now that I'm in the room," I said icily. "Next time you have something to say, how about saying it to my face?"

Parvati's jaw dropped and Lavender suddenly became red in the face as I made my way over to my bed. Without looking at anyone else, I got underneath my sheets and laid my head on my pillow. Within a few minutes of silence, someone finally turned out the light and no one made another sound for the rest of the night.

* * *

The next morning, neither of the girls looked at me before they were out of the room. Hermione waited for me to finish dressing before we walked down to the common room to meet up with Harry and Ron. Apparently they had been having a similar conflict in their room the night before.

"Seamus was saying that he doesn't believe that You-Know-Who is back," Ron said. "He thinks that you two are lying about the whole thing."

"Maybe he should speak with Lavender," I scoffed. "The two of them could be the best of friends."

"You've got to be kidding me," Hermione sighed.

"No, I think they'd get on great," I muttered.

"No, not that," Hermione said. "Look!"

I turned over to where she was pointing to and I found a sign on the Gryffindor notice board that read:

_GALLONS OF GALLEONS!_

_Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings?_

_Like to earn a little extra gold?_

_Contact Fred and George Weasley, Gryffindor common room,_

_for simple, part-time, virtually painless jobs._

_(We regret that all work is undertaken at applicant's own risk.) _

"We have to stop this," Hermione said to Ron.

"You have fun with that," Ron laughed.

"We're prefects Ronald - it's our duty!" Hermione squeaked.

Ron shrugged and Hermione turned to me looking like she had lost all hope. Suddenly, she seemed like she came across a realization.

"Emily, can't you stop them?" Hermione asked.

"What?" I asked her in disbelief.

"George is your boyfriend, he'll listen to you!" Hermione said. "And if he stops with this than Fred is sure to stop too!"

"I think that you've gone mad," I laughed. "They are about as likely to stop breaking the rules as you are failing out of Hogwarts."

Without another word, we all made our way down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Usually I was one of the first people there, but because I had difficulty sleeping the night before, I was walking in when everyone else usually did. Before we made it to our table, Harry was pulled to the side to talk to Angelina - probably about Quidditch. Instead of staying with him, I made my way over to sit next to George who was talking with Fred about something.

"Morning," I said to them both.

"Did you see our bulletin?" they both asked at once.

"How could I have missed it?" I asked as I grabbed a piece of toast from a plate nearby. "The thing took up the entire board."

"Wonderful," Fred said as he rubbed his hands together.

George leaned over and kissed me on the cheek as I spread some butter on my toast. I gave him a half-smile as I set it back down.

"What's wrong, babe?" he asked with concern.

"Nothing at all, pumpkin," Fred smiled.

"Shut it," George retorted. "Emily - you seem down?"

"It's not really important," I shrugged.

"Yes it is," George said as he pulled me closer. "What happened?"

"It was just what Lavender was saying last night in our dorm," I said. "She was talking about how she thought Harry and I were lying about Vol-You-Know-Who being back."

"Just ignore her," George said. "No one asked for her opinion anyway."

"It's not only her opinion," I sighed. "Everyone thinks that…"

"Only the idiots," George said. "They'll come around soon enough."

"It'll be too late by then…" I murmured.

George was about to say something else, but was interrupted by someone behind us who came barging up to us.

"Fred, George - we need to talk," Hermione said. "You need to take that bulletin down from the common room immediately and stop what you are doing."

"Says who?" Fred asked.

"Me," Hermione said while putting her hands on her hips. "And Ron."

"I did not," Ron said as he took a seat.

"Emily agrees," Hermione said. "She said that she won't date you unless you stop."

"No she didn't," George said while looking at me. "You wouldn't do that, right?"

"Of course not," I said. "Hermione, leave me out of this - and don't lie about what I say."

"Well you aren't helping me at all," Hermione grumbled. "If anything, you're encouraging his behavior!"

If only she knew that Harry and I were the ones that were actually making this behavior possible. Of course, I wouldn't tell her that because I almost think that she would give me detention at this point.

"Can you please try to talk some sense in to him?" Hermione begged.

"There's no stopping us Granger," Fred smiled. "Besides, why would Emily try to convince us to stop when she's helped us out before?"

"Fine, do what you want," Hermione said. "But when you get in trouble, don't expect me to help you."

"You wouldn't help us anyway," Fred laughed.

Hermione rolled her eyes and took a seat across from us. From her bag, she pulled out her schedule and began to read through it. I decided to do the same and I groaned when I saw what we had.

"We have History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defense Against the Dark Arts today," I said.

"This is going to be awful," Harry said while putting his head down on the table in defeat.

That doesn't even begin to describe what the day is going to be like…

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I'm going to guess that the next chapter should be up from around Sunday to Tuesday depending on how sick I am. I went to the doctor's yesterday and they said that I have Tonsillitis. This morning I was doing awful because I had a fever, but I'm doing slightly better now. Wow, I'm rambling.**

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	11. Future Plans and Anger Problems

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 11**

The first class that we had, much to my own disappointment, was History of Magic. The second that we stepped into the room, I instantly felt bored. It was amazing how that room affected me. I took my usual seat next to Hermione and Neville and as soon as Professor Binns stood up to start his lecture, I felt my eyes begin to droop as I rested my head on my hands.

"Emily, it's the first day and you're already sleeping," Hermione hissed as she nudged me.

"Not yet..." I yawned. "Just give me a second and I'll be at that point."

"You're going to fail your OWL if you keep it up," she whispered.

"Not if you let me copy your notes," I smiled at her.

Hermione rolled her eyes and looked back up at Professor Binns with a sigh. It was true that the only reason that I've been passing this class was because I have been reading through her notes before tests. Of course, I was hardly passing because the notes were about as boring as the lecture, but I was still passing. At the desk behind me, I could see that Ron and Harry were just as amused as I was in here as they had taken to playing hangman on the desk instead of listening to Professor Binns drone on about troll wars - as exciting as that subject could get (NOT!).

I was just about to fall asleep when I felt someone poke me in the arm. When I turned to see who it was, I saw Neville handing me a piece of parchment with a note on it.

_Did George give you any of those Puking Pastels?_

I turned and raised an eyebrow as he looked hopeful. Quickly, I wrote down a response and passed it back.

_No, he said that he wanted to find the antidote before he would let me use it._

I shrugged and then turned back to Professor Binns who was now pacing the room talking about how the troll wars had such a large impact on the wizarding community and with that, I fell right to sleep without another thought.

I woke up at the sound of the bell that released us to Potions class. As I was the only one that wasn't completely against this class, I walked quickly off to the dungeons with the rest of my group lagging behind me. Of course, I lost them when they ran into Cho Chang - the love of Harry's life apparently.

When I got into the room, I was one of the few people that were already there including Draco Malfoy and his gang of friends who weren't sitting that far away from where I found my seat. I rolled my eyes as I unpacked my things to get ready for class. From what I could see on the board, we were going to be making a potion called the Draught of Peace, something that I had seen briefly mentioned in something that I had read before.

"Look who we have here," Draco said when he caught sight of me.

I pulled my seat back and sat down as I rolled my eyes at him once again and threw him a short, sarcastic smile of welcome.

"Where is your brother and that Mudblood?" Draco scoffed. "Don't you usually travel in a pack?"

"He's still in the hallway, if you must know," I muttered as I pulled out my quill.

"Must be signing some autographs," Draco sneered. "Or maybe he doesn't do that anymore considering everyone thinks he's a freak."

"Is this how the year is going to be Malfoy?" I asked in a blunt manner. "You constantly calling us freaks?"

"No, I'm sure you're going to get that from other people as well," he smirked. "Just check the _Prophet_ if you need some reminding."

"Thanks for the tip," I muttered.

"That wasn't a tip," Goyle said. "He was calling you a freak Potter."

"I think she got that, you idiot," Draco said while punching him in the arm. "She's not stupid."

"She's not?" Crabbe asked.

"I mean, she is," Draco quickly covered up. "But - oh, you know what I mean."

Nothing else was said because Snape and some of the other students came into the room for class and apparently they had enough with me. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione came into the room, Hermione was yelling at Ron for something while Harry had this weird dazed look on his face.

"What's with you?" I asked with a laugh.

"W-what?" Harry asked as he took his seat.

"You look like you were hit with a Bludger," I said.

"He got to talk to Cho Chang," Hermione told me. "And he would have gotten to talk to her longer if Ron would have kept his mouth shut."

She shot a look at Ron who was trying to look as innocent as he could.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was just asking when she started supporting the Tornados," Ron said. "A lot of people only support them because they're jumping on the bandwagon."

"But she obviously wanted to talk to Harry alone," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"How was I supposed to know that?" Ron asked. "I'm not a mind reader!"

"You should have just known Ronald - she was practically begging!" Hermione said.

"But I didn't - " Ron started.

"Would you two just shut up," I said suddenly. "You're acting like children!"

"Fine…" Ron said as he turned around to face the board.

"If you would have been there, you would have known too," Hermione said.

"Which was why I wasn't," I said. "I figured that Harry wanted to talk to her, that's why I walked on ahead."

"Oh…" Hermione said in surprise. "I guess that I should have thought about that."

"Okay, settle down," Snape said as he stood up from his desk to start class.

Everyone who was talking stopped and turned around to face where Snape was now pacing around. As usual, he looked miserable and appeared to want to be anywhere but in front of this class. Of course, it mostly had to do with the fact that there were Gryffindors in the room.

"As you all are well aware of," Snape said. "You will all be taking your OWL examination this June to test your knowledge in creating potions. I imagine that, even as terrible as some of you may be, you _should _be able to make it by with an 'Acceptable.'"

For a moment, he glared at Neville who looked very scared that he wouldn't get an 'Acceptable' at the moment. I made a mental note to make sure to help him more than usual this year so that he wouldn't have to take it again next year.

"This may be the final class that you have here being that you aren't required to take Potions next year," Snape said. "However, I imagine that some of you may have the talent to move on to take the NEWT for this class - you should know that I only take on those who score an 'Outstanding' on their OWL, which I can only imagine that a select few of you will achieve…"

His eyes lingered on mine for a moment before he continued.

"Now, today you are to create a potion called the Draught of Peace," Snape said. "Make sure to pay close attention to this one because if you put too much into it, it could force the drinker into an irreversible sleep. You may begin."

Considering I had never actually read about this potion, I made sure to look through everything before actually starting. Once I read the instructions, I decided that this potion didn't seem to be too difficult to create. I spent the rest of the period making sure to do everything as listed on the board. When the potion was finished, a light silver vapor was coming out of the cauldron.

"Very good Miss Potter," Snape said under his breath as he passed by.

"Do I get any points for this one?" I asked with a false smile of hope.

"I don't give points to people for doing what they are told," Snape smirked.

"Or anyone in the Gryffindor house," I muttered.

Snape narrowed his eyes and continued to walk through the tables to see all of the potions and how they were progressing. Unfortunately, Neville didn't seem to understand this one at all because it was now foaming out of its cauldron. Snape just shook his head and kept walking.

"What is this Potter?" Snape asked Harry in disgust.

"It's…Draught of Peace…" Harry said.

When I looked up at his potion, there was no doubt that he did something wrong. And, as usual, Snape was there to mock him for messing up. Why didn't he do that with Neville - his potion was worse than Harry's. What about Goyle's potion - his was awful and didn't even resemble Draught of Peace in the slightest. It was ridiculous the way that he treated Harry.

"Mr. Potter, do you have the ability to read?" Snape sneered.

"Yes…" Harry said while looking up at the instructions on the board.

"Then tell me, did you follow all of the instructions to create this potion?" Snape asked.

"I thought I did…" Harry said while reading through the list and suddenly he had a look of realization. "I forgot the hellebore…"

"Obviously," Snape said as he narrowed his eyes. "Which means that this potion is more dangerous than anything else and will fail you on the OWL if you do so, do you understand?"

"Yes," Harry said as he narrowed his eyes right back.

Snape cleared Harry's potion and walked back to the board as he told the class what we were supposed to be doing for homework. Beside me, Neville seemed to be struggling to keep his potion inside of the cauldron.

"What is the spell to clear this?" he asked desperately.

I waved my wand and said "Evansece" and the potion quickly cleared and it appeared just as clear as it had been in the beginning of class.

"Thanks," he smiled.

When the bell rang, Harry quickly packed his things and stormed out of the room. Neville looked at me with a look of concern and I just shrugged - it wasn't like it was uncommon for Snape and Harry to have some sort of conflict during class considering it happened nearly every time we set foot in the classroom. Once I packed all of my things up, I was about to leave the room to catch up to Harry when my name was

called.

"Emily, may I have a word?" Snape called.

I nodded and turned to Neville who raised an eyebrow in question.

"I'll catch up with you later," I said.

Once the room was clear, Snape motioned for me to sit at the table in front of him. Even though I wasn't really sure what this was about, I walked over and set down my things.

"It's no secret that you do very well in this class," Snape said as he walked in front of my table. "And there isn't a doubt in my mind that you will get an 'Outstanding' on it."

"T-thank you," I said in surprise.

"I imagine that you will be one of the few students who will be able to make it to a NEWT level," Snape nodded. "Do you plan on taking that course, may I ask?"

"I don't see why not," I said.

"You do enjoy the course, am I wrong?" he asked.

"It's my favorite class," I said simply.

"I had a feeling that it was," Snape said. "Emily - Miss Potter, I mean - have you ever considered what you would like to do after you finish school?"

"Not really..." I said. "I've been told that I would make a good Auror, but...I don't really know if that's what I want to do...it seems more like something Harry would do really...I think that he would do good in that profession...not that I don't think I have the ability, it just...doesn't interest me as much as it does Harry..."

"You're rambling," Snape said sounding almost amused. "You would make a good Auror, but...have you ever considered making a career out of your potion expertise?"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Perhaps a professor?" he suggested.

"A professor?" I asked in disbelief. "Me?"

"Why not?"

"Well...I don't know," I stuttered. "I've just never even thought about that before - I don't even know if I could - "

"With some training you could," Snape smirked. "You would make an excellent educator."

This thought completely baffled me. It wasn't that I wouldn't want to be a teacher, it was just that I had never even thought about that before. Now that I thought about it, it wasn't really that crazy to picture myself as a teacher - in fact, I don't think that I would do all that bad. But where did this come from?

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked after a moment.

"Well, as you know, fifth years are going to be asked these sort of questions by the Head of their house this year," Snape said. "I was just curious if you had any sort of plan."

"Do you really think I have the ability to teach?" I asked while looking down at my hands. "I've never really done that sort of thing before."

"Emily - Miss Potter - you honestly don't think that I haven't noticed you helping your brother and Misters Weasley and Longbottom?" he sighed.

"But what does that prove?" I scoffed. "They aren't really learning much - normally they just let it slide over their heads when I let them cheat."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Snape said under his breath. "You have talent Miss Potter - I just thought that you should consider it."

"Thank you," I smiled.

He nodded in recognition and made his way behind his desk and sat down so that he could go through some papers that were laying on his desk already. I was about to turn and leave when I suddenly thought of something that made me feel like I had a fire raging inside of me. Why did Snape treat me like this? He was so rude to Harry and he treated me like I was his best friend - it didn't make any sense and, to be honest, it irritated me more than anything.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked suddenly.

"Doing what?" he asked in surprise of my tone of hostility.

"Talking to me," I said. "Being nice to me - even associating with me."

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Why - ?"

"Why don't you hate me like you hate Harry?" I asked. "James was my father too - you should hate me just as much!"

"Where did this - ?" Snape asked in shock.

"You treat him like dirt because of who his father is!" I said angrily. "Why don't you do the same to me? Do you not understand that I am his child too? Why would you treat me any differently?"

"Emily - where did this come from?" he asked.

"Did you honestly expect me to just accept the fact that you hate my brother?" I asked. "He's my only family - why can't you understand that?"

"I know that he is - and I never said that I hated him," Snape said sounding almost like he was afraid of me.

"You don't have to _say_ it!" I said. "It's written all over your face!"

"I'm sorry - I didn't mean to-"

"I've heard enough, you're never going to change!" I shouted.

Without another word, I stormed out of the room leaving him with a slam of the door. To be honest, I don't know why I suddenly got angry with him, but it was something that's been bothering me for a long time. Every single time he made a snide remark to Harry, I just felt my blood begin to boil. I didn't stop walking until I made it to the Great Hall where I plopped down next to George and across from Ron and Hermione who both looked disgruntled.

"Where's Harry?" I demanded.

"Whoa, what's with the anger?" George asked with a small laugh.

I shot him a look and he quickly stopped laughing and stuffed a large amount of mashed potatoes in his mouth and smiled, the food just sticking out of his mouth.

"I wub you!" he said as potatoes oozed down.

"Ew," Hermione said in disgust.

"You're gross," I laughed at George. "But I love you too."

I handed George a napkin and then turned back to Ron and Hermione who were watching George in disgust as he continued to shovel food into his mouth. I see now that Ron wasn't the only Weasley that ate like a pig…

"Where is he?" I asked, this time without the anger.

"I don't know," Ron shrugged.

"He ran off after we were fighting," Hermione said. "I don't even remember what it was about but Harry got really mad at us and stormed off."

"He told us to shut up and stop fighting," Ron said. "He mentioned something about how you were right by saying we act like children."

"Well, you do," I said while grabbing a sandwich nearby.

"Okay, but I don't know where it came from," Hermione said. "It was like he snapped - he was fine and all of a sudden he just went off on us."

I nodded and ate my sandwich without saying anything. Maybe it was just a weird coincidence that we both happened to have some sort of episode at once…or maybe not…

"Well, I better go find him," I said. "I'll see you all later."

I gave George a kiss on the cheek because he still had potatoes shoved into his mouth and then I went out of the Great Hall to go looking for him. Considering he wasn't in the Great Hall and class was about to start, I figured that he would probably be near the North Tower waiting for Divination to start. When I got there, I found him sitting underneath the trapdoor of the classroom.

"There you are," I said as I took a seat next to him.

"Ron and Hermione send you here?" he asked.

"No, I just wanted to see if you were okay," I said.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Harry sighed. "I don't know what it was, but I just felt so angry all of a sudden…"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," I said. "I was just talking to Snape and the same thing happened…."

"You went off on Snape?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah…" I sighed. "He was just asking me about what I wanted to do after school. I was going to leave, but I just got really angry for no reason."

"Do you…do you think that it was just a coincidence?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said with a shrug of the shoulders.

To be honest, I thought that it was more than a coincidence. Sure, we both had real reasons to be angry, but why had it happen all at once? We had both been perfectly fine and just snapped all of a sudden. It didn't make any sense. Maybe we were just over thinking it or maybe it was something that we needed to talk to Dumbledore about. After all, he did say that he wanted us to tell him if anything happened out of the ordinary and this did seem a bit odd…

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! ****By the way, the next chapter will include the DADA class. ****The next chapter should be up some time from Wednesday-Thursday! Just so you all know, I'm going to be going to the beach from July 26 to around August 3, so I probably won't have anything up during that time. Of course, I will try to have as much up as I can before that time and I hope that you continue to read despite my constant leaving. Thanks again!**

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	12. The Talk of the School

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 12**

When the bell rang for lunch to end, Harry and I were the first ones up the ladder to the North Tower. As usual, the entire room was lit up by a fire and filled with a subtle smoke that gave a person the feeling that they were in some sort of mystical area. Of course, being that we have been in here before, we knew very well that this class was completely worthless and the most mystical part of anything was the way that Professor Trelawney dressed.

"Hermione and I stopped fighting…" Ron said to Harry at the table next to me. "But…Hermione thinks it would be nice if you would stop yelling at us whenever you have a temper."

"What, I - " Harry started.

"I'm just telling you," Ron grumbled.

When Neville sat down next to me, I didn't hear anymore of their conversation because class started shortly afterwards. Professor Trelawney came out of the mists and looked around at all of us in her far too large glasses that gave her the appearance of a very misshapen bug.

"Good afternoon," she smiled at us. "Today we will be taking a look at dreams and how to properly interpret them. You will all divide up into pairs and use The Dream Oracle to interpret your latest dreams - you may begin!"

I sighed and pulled my book out from my bag and dropped it onto the desk without hiding my annoyance. Sometimes I wish I would have just walked out of the class with Hermione during third year because this class was getting me nowhere. The only reason that I stayed was because Neville begged me to so that he would have someone to work with. He better be happy that I'm such a good friend to him…

"Had any dreams lately?" Neville asked.

"None that I need any interpretation for…" I muttered. "What about you?"

"Um…I think that I had one the other night," Neville thought. "It had something to do with me going into a greenhouse…"

"So, that obviously means that you are going to die a terrible death by a Cyclops…" I said with an eye roll.

"Sounds about right," Neville said with a short laugh.

For the remainder of class, we both just went back and forth about how we were going to make all of our dreams somehow relate to our untimely death. Somehow, those ended up being the most believable to Professor Trelawney. When the bell rang, we were given another bound of homework and were sent off to our next class. It wasn't until then that I realized that it was going to be Defense Against the Dark Arts now. It was strange how I wasn't looking forward to this in the slightest. I don't know what it was about that Umbridge woman, but I just couldn't stand her.

"Come in now, sit wherever you like," Professor Umbridge said as she opened up the doors to her class.

I found a seat next to Hermione and Neville while Harry and Ron sat at the desk directly in front of us. Once everyone was seated, Professor Umbridge in her usual too pink attire (including an awful black ribbon sitting on top of her toad-like head) stood in the front of the room with a smile planted on her face.

"Good afternoon class," she said in a far too cheerful tone.

Everyone just sat in their desks looking at her as though she had a third eye. A few people said good afternoon back, much to the teacher's disapproval.

"I'm sorry, I must not have heard you all," she said. "Let's try again - good afternoon, class!"

"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," we all said together in a very bored sounding manner.

"Thank you," she said cheerfully. "Now, let's begin class. Everyone put their wands away and grab a quill."

Everyone did what she asked as she pulled her wand out and tapped it onto the board where a series of words appeared on the blackboard.

_Defense Against the Dark Arts_

_A Return to Basic Principles_

_Course Aims:_

_1. Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic._

_2. Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can legally be used._

_3. Placing the use of defensive magic in context for practical use._

"We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centered, Ministry-approved course this year," Umbridge said with a smile. "I ask that you copy everything down - do you have a question, Miss Potter?"

My hand shot up as soon as I finished reading what was on the board. Something didn't make any sense to me at all.

"Yes," I said. "You do realize that we are in our fifth year, right?"

"Why, of course I do," she said.

"Then why are we learning something that is meant for first years?" I asked. "Shouldn't we be learning more advanced magic?"

"That is a good question," she said as she began to pace around. "The Ministry believes that the students here have had a very unstable learning environment in this particular class because of the constant changing of teachers. So, we took it upon ourselves to start fresh to guarantee your best performance."

"The other teachers still taught us the material very well," I said.

"I don't think that you are qualified to make such a statement," Umbridge said. "Moving on! I ask that you all pull out your Defensive Magical Theory book out and read Chapter One, Basics for Beginners."

Everyone just looked around for a moment in confusion and then took out their books and flipped to the page. Of course, not many people took to reading it because nearly everyone had their focus on Hermione, who was raising her hand beside me without taking her eyes off of the professor who was now sitting at her desk.

"Do you have a question Miss - ?" Umbridge asked.

"Hermione Granger," Hermione nodded. "Yes, I have a question about the course aims."

"Yes?" she asked.

"There isn't anything there about using defensive spells," Hermione said clearly.

Everyone in the room looked back up at the board, apparently seeing if what she said was actually true. Now that I was actually paying attention, there didn't seem to be anything about practicing these spells. There must be some sort of mistake.

"Why on earth would you need to use defensive spells in my classroom?" she asked with a small chuckle. "I don't know what you've heard about me, but I have no intention of attacking you."

"We aren't going to use magic?" Ron asked in surprise.

"Students will raise their hands if they wish to speak in my class," she said very quickly. "And your name is?"

"Ron Weasley," he said while giving her an odd look.

"The Ministry recognizes that the students of Hogwarts have been exposed to a variety of very inappropriate teachers in the past," she said. "Those who have produced illegal magic in this very classroom and we wish to put a stop to that so that you will not cause yourselves harm by think that it is okay to do such things."

"Everyone knows that Professor Moody turned out to be a maniac anyway," Dean spoke up.

"I did not see your hand Mr. - " she said angrily.

"Dean Thomas," he said.

I threw my hand in the air and she gave me a smile and pointed at me.

"What's the use in learning the material if we aren't going to practice it?" I asked.

"If you know the theory, then I couldn't imagine that there should be a problem," she said with a forced smile.

"But what about the OWLs?" I asked. "We're going to have to perform magic - how do you suppose we are going to pass if we've never done the spells before?"

"Like I said, knowing the theory should be enough," she answered with a huff.

"How is that going to help us in the real world?" Harry piped up.

"This is school, Mr. Potter," she said quickly. "Not the real world."

"But isn't that the purpose of school?" I asked. "To prepare us for what is out there?"

"There isn't anything out there," Umridge snapped.

"So is that what they're telling you?" I asked.

"Miss Potter, who do you think is going to attack children?" she said with a small laugh.

"Oh, hmmm...I don't know," I said in a mocking tone.

"Maybe...Lord Voldemort?" Harry suggested.

Everyone in the room fell quiet and all eyes flew to Harry and me. Umbridge's eyes widened and she looked like she wanted to break something. Something told me that she wouldn't like that comment any more than Fudge himself would. I don't know what it was with these Ministry officials.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," Umbridge said. "Let me make one thing clear - you all have been told that a certain Dark wizard has returned. This is a lie."

"It is NOT!" Harry shouted. "Emily and I BOTH saw him! We fought him!"

"Detention!" Umbridge shouted. "Tomorrow evening! It is a LIE, Mr. Potter - and you better believe it. No one in this room is in any danger from anyone!"

"Then how do you suppose Cedric Diggory died then?" I demanded, several people gasped. "What is the Ministry's story on that?"

"Mr. Diggory's death was a tragic accident," Umbridge said.

"_AN ACCIDENT_?" I shouted. "Cedric was _MURDERED_! I saw it with my own eyes - I have nightmares about it every night and your telling me that it never happened?"

"I've heard enough!" Umbridge shouted. "Both of you, come here."

Harry stood up and shoved his chair to the side. I stood up and firmly walked up to the front of the room without taking my eyes off of her. She narrowed her eyes as we stood in front of her and she quickly wrote a note and handed it to Harry.

"Take this to Professor McGonagall," she said shortly. "Both of you, out of here."

"You people won't be satisfied until he has the world blown up," I muttered as I walked out of the door, earning a glare from the teacher on my way out.

Once we were in the hallway, neither of us said a word to the other. There really wasn't any need to considering what we wanted to say was written all over our faces. It was maddening to know that no one would believe us just because the Minister was too afraid to admit the truth. The whole world was going to burn at the hands of Voldemort just because no one had been warned and the only people who knew the truth were being made out to be insane.

When we got to the hallway where her office sat, she was already outside of it yelling at Peeves who was floating nearby. When he saw us coming around, he stuck his tongue out and flew off past us and out of sight. Professor McGonagall looked annoyed and then saw that we were there.

"What are the two of you doing here?" she asked with a stern expression. "You should be in class."

Without a word, Harry handed her the letter and she read through it quickly. She looked around the corridor for a minute before ushering us into her office and closing the door behind us.

"You were both shouting at Professor Umbridge?" she asked.

"Yes," we said at once.

"And you told her that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back?"

"Yes."

"And called her a liar in front of everyone?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Would you care for a biscuit?" she asked with a smile.

"W-what?" Harry asked.

"Sure," I said while smiling back.

I took one from a plate that was sitting on her desk as we all took a seat and she looked from one of us to the other with an unreadable expression.

"You both need to watch what you say around Dolores Umbridge," she said in all seriousness. "She's a dangerous woman."

"Dangerous?" I scoffed. "_You're_ dangerous - this woman doesn't know what she's doing."

"Although I could agree, in that sense, that she isn't a threat in the slightest," she said quickly. "You both need to exercise caution around her. You know who she's reporting back to."

When the bell rang, she just looked from one of us to the other and let out a sigh. It was then that I actually understood where her trust lie. I guess that I'd never really thought about it, but I suppose that Professor McGonagall might actually believe that what we say is the truth. No doubt, it was probably only because Dumbledore believed us, but still, it really did matter that she wasn't siding with the Ministry.

"Well, it says on here that you both have detention every evening of this week," she read off the note.

"Every day?" Harry asked in disbelief. "She can't do that!"

"Yes she can, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said. "Even though I hate to be on the same level as her, she still has rights as a teacher and I can't take them away from her."

"Fine..." Harry said as he sat back in his chair.

"Just...watch what you say around her," McGonagall said.

Without another word, we were released from McGonagall's office to go to the Great Hall for dinner. However, this became a problem because I knew that I wouldn't be able to eat because of how sick I had gotten from the screaming match with Umbridge.

"Harry, I think I'm going to skip this," I sighed.

"Are you okay?" he asked with concern.

"Yeah, I just don't feel like going in there with all of those people," I said.

"Do you want me to go with you?" he asked.

"No, it's fine," I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I wouldn't mind."

"I'll be okay," I said. "I just don't want to be surrounded by people right now..."

He nodded and then hesitantly walked into the Great Hall by himself. Once he was out of sight, I began to walk up the stairs. A few people who were running a bit late passed me and fell silent once they saw me. Apparently they had heard about what had happened in Umbridge's class earlier. That or they were just talking about how much of a lunatic Harry and I were. It could go either way at this point.

Once I reached the third floor, I found someone else walking aimlessly around the halls. She had long blonde hair and had an expression on her face that suggested that she was in a completely different world. It was Luna Lovegood.

"Hello Emily Potter," she said in a tone that reminded me a little bit of Professor Trelawney.

"Hey Luna," I said with a smile.

I was about to keep walking when she turned her head and looked at me curiously.

"Is it true that you were yelling at Professor Umbridge?" she asked.

"Er…I guess you could say that," I said while pulling at the collar of my shirt.

"That's what I've been hearing around the school anyway," she said in a whisper. "Of course, I know not to believe everything I hear about you and your brother."

"Thanks…I think…" I said hesitantly. "What are you doing up here anyway?"

"I didn't really feel like eating very much," she said.

"Me either…" I said.

"You're avoiding people, aren't you?" she asked.

How did she know that? Well, I guess that it was a little bit obvious. Then again, she doesn't really know me very well…

"It's okay, I understand," she said. "People can be a bit cruel when they don't understand you."

I really didn't know what to say to her. Everything that she was saying was true, but I just drew a blank. Maybe she just understood what it was like to be an outcast.

"You should know that my father and I believe you and your brother," she said vaguely as she began to walk forward and I fell into step next to her easily because she was walking slowly.

"Believe what?" I asked in confusion.

"About You-Know-Who coming back," she said simply. "We think that the Ministry is conspiring against you two and Dumbledore…"

"Oh," I said in shock.

It was strange to hear someone say things like this after so many people telling us that we were liars, especially someone like Luna who had never even spoken to us before.

"Thank you, I guess," I said.

"I suppose that was the reason for your fight with Umbridge?" she said.

"Exactly…" I said.

"She'll come around eventually," she said. "Everyone will see that you're right in the end."

"It might be too late by then," I sighed.

"We can only wait and see," she said.

For a little while, we just walked around in silence before I noticed a few more people walking along the corridors. I guess that dinner must have ended. Much to my disappointment, I saw that it was Draco Malfoy with his usual band of friends beside him - Crabbe and Goyle.

"Look what we have here boys," Draco said with false cheer.

"Are you going to say that every time you see me Malfoy?" I scoffed. "Because it's getting really old."

"Heard that you and Potter both had another episode today," Draco said without even commenting on what I said.

"How is that any of your business?" I asked.

"It's just what the whole school is talking about," Draco said. "Starting off to another good year, I see. I guess that it wouldn't be in character if you two weren't trying to get attention already."

"Shove off," I said and tried to walk around them.

Quickly, Crabbe and Goyle stepped up next to Malfoy to block my way so that I couldn't go around. Is this how they were going to act? This is ridiculous.

"Would you mind acting your age for five minutes and just leave me alone?" I asked them.

"Is that how you're going to talk to a prefect?" Draco asked as he pulled on his badge.

"It doesn't matter," I said. "I already have detention."

"How long?" he asked.

"A week," I said.

"With who?" he asked in shock.

"Umbridge," I said. "You mean that information hasn't spread too?"

"No, this is the first I've heard about that," Draco said while looking almost concerned.

"What does it matter?" I asked suddenly.

"You were going to give her more detention, right?" Goyle grunted.

"Oh - yeah, that's why I asked," Draco said quickly while sounding a bit unconvincing.

"Aren't you Draco Malfoy?" Luna asked suddenly.

I jumped, forgetting that she was still there because of how quiet she had gotten.

"Er…yeah," Draco answered.

"Okay," she said and walked around them with ease.

Everyone got quiet and watched as she just walked around the corner, humming to herself like she hadn't just been completely random.

"What's with her?" Draco asked.

"I don't know," I said with a smile. "She's kind of cool though…"

"A lunatic," Draco scoffed.

"Yeah, but there are some perks to being a lunatic," I said.

"I suppose you wouldn't be bothered as much," Draco shrugged.

"I wouldn't mind that," I sighed.

"Maybe if you tried to keep a low profile for a bit, everyone might just leave you alone," Draco suggested.

It was then that I noticed that Crabbe and Goyle were looking at Draco as though he had just grown an extra arm. Maybe it was because he was actually being decent to me - he must have forgotten that he had brought an audience with him because he quickly snapped back to his usual self and scowled at me for a cover up.

"Thanks for the tip," I chuckled. "See you around."

"Whatever Potter," he scowled.

"Right," I laughed.

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle pushed passed me and muttered things like "freak" and "she's crazy" before they walked around the corridor. I rolled my eyes and continued to walk up the stairs like I had been doing earlier and made my way to the common room. I suppose that some people might be finished eating by now. I might as well catch up with homework before I had to deal with all of the detention that I had. That was going to be hell...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it. My next chapter should be up around Sunday or Monday (EST). Also, I was given an idea that mentioned making a follow up series with the next generation. Would anyone be interested in reading that if I were to make one?**

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	13. Due for Detention

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 13**

By the time I got back to the common room, the majority of the people seemed to be clearing out for some reason. Oddly enough, most of them seemed to be first years who were a bit disgruntled about something. The remaining people were Harry, Ron, and Hermione on one side of the room and Fred, George, and Lee who all seemed to be surprised and baffled.

"What's going on?" I asked George as I stepped over to the corner they were sitting in.

"We were shut down," George said in shock.

"By who?" I asked.

"Hermione," Fred said while throwing a look over towards her. "She caught us testing out our products on first years and she went off on us."

"And you listened to her?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"She threatened to tell our mother," George said. "And I prefer life to be honest - Mum would kill us if she found out what we're doing."

"She's going to figure out soon enough," I said. "Don't you think she'll notice when you buy a shop?"

"Obviously," Fred said. "But who says that she needs to find out who we're testing the products on? It's not really in our best interest for her to find that out."

"Have you all thought about where you're going to put the shop anyway?" Lee asked. "You mentioned that you had a few places in mind."

"We were thinking about either Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade," Fred said. "We're trying to figure out which would bring in more money."

"I would think Diagon Alley," I said. "Loads more people go through there."

"Yeah, but not all of them would be willing to buy from us," George said. "We think that we might have more demand here in Hogsmeade."

"But what about when school isn't in session?" I asked. "That won't be good for business."

"That's true..." Fred said. "I guess I never really thought about it like that..."

Once they finished up packing all of their things, they began to all stand up and make their way towards the dormitories.

"I guess that I'm off to bed then..." George said as he gave me a quick kiss while glaring over at his brother.

"Don't I get a kiss Georgey?" Fred asked.

George rolled his eyes and shoved his brother as he walked through the door and up the stairs. When they were no longer in sight, I walked over to sit next to Harry on the couch across from Ron and Hermione.

"Did they say anything about us?" Ron asked.

"Why would they say anything about you?" Hermione scoffed. "You didn't do anything - I was the one that had to yell at them."

"You didn't have to yell at them," Ron said. "It's not really your business what they do in their spare time."

"Yes it is!" Hermione said angrily. "That's why we were made prefects Ron - that's our duty!"

"Yeah, yeah," Ron muttered. "I'm going to bed..."

"I will be going too in just a minute," she said while reaching into her bag nearby.

From her bag, she pulled out several objects that all had a similar misfortunate shape. When I got a closer look, I saw that they appeared to be hats. What was Hermione doing with a bunch of hats?

"Er - Hermione?" I asked.

"They are for the house-elves," she said. "I've been knitting them all through the summer. I can't wait to start doing them by magic because it takes so much time to do them by hand."

"Why are you giving them hats?" I asked. "Don't tell me that this is some attempt to set them free Hermione - it's just going to make them angry at you."

"So what if it is," Hermione said with a shrug.

"Open your eyes Hermione - they don't want to be free!" I said. "Take a look at Winky - the elf is miserable as it is."

"What about Dobby?" she said. "He's happier than any other elf that I've seen being free."

"That's just him," I said. "All of the other ones like what they are doing."

"They just don't know any better," Hermione huffed. "Once they see what freedom is like, they'll never want to return to your old life."

"She's hopeless," Ron muttered.

I sighed and gave up trying to convince Hermione otherwise. She wouldn't be happy until all of the house-elves were free from their enslavement. Of course, it wouldn't be a bad idea really if they hated what they were doing. If anything, they seemed like they loved it more than life itself.

I said goodnight to everyone and made my way up to the dorms alone while Hermione finished laying out hats around the common room. When I stepped through the door into our dorms, I found that Lavender and Parvati were already there. When they saw me, they stopped talking just like they did before.

"Hey Emily," Parvati said.

"Hey," I said with a small smile. "I'm going to bed, so goodnight - you too Lavender."

Parvati shot a look at Lavender and she just shrugged in response. With one more huff, Lavender turned her back on me as I got into my bed for the night. To be honest, it didn't bother me as much tonight as it did before. Maybe it had something to do with what Luna had said to me earlier.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, everyone else was still asleep. I quickly got dressed and walked out to the common room where I found Fred, George, and Lee all sitting in the same spot they had been the night before. When they saw me coming, they quickly grabbed all of their things and hid them.

"Oh, it's just you," Fred said. "I thought that it was Hermione again - is she awake?"

"Not yet," I said. "Have you been testing them on people again?"

"No, we're going to look for some more people today," George said. "We just need to stay out of Hermione's sight."

"You better hope she doesn't catch you," I laughed. "She'll probably kill you if she finds testing anything on first years."

"Don't worry, she won't catch us doing that," Fred said. "We aren't testing first-years anymore."

"We're testing second-years," Lee smiled.

"Oh, that's so much better," I laughed.

"Well, at least they are older," Fred said. "Besides, we tested them on ourselves first."

"We're just seeing if it affects everyone else the same," George said. "And it does so far."

"Hey, maybe you could be our next test subject," Lee suggested.

"No," George said instantly.

Fred chuckled and rolled his eyes before packing some of their latest products into a bag that he was carrying with him.

"Why not?" I asked. "I wouldn't mind."

"I don't want you to," George said. "Not until we're sure it can't hurt anyone."

"Didn't seem to mind me taking them," Fred mumbled under his breath.

George shot him a look just as I heard someone walking down the steps to the common room. Luckily, it wasn't Hermione - not that it would matter much now that everything was packed away in Fred's bag. It was Neville with his plant.

"Ah, there you are," Fred said. "You have the stuff?"

"This sounds like some shady back deal," I laughed.

"Yeah, I have some here," Neville said. "Be careful with that stuff, it's awful..."

He handed over a few vials of the same nasty looking goo that I had seen on the train on the way to the castle. It made me cringe to think of how Neville had to get this. No doubt he had to be covered in the stuff himself from irritating it.

"You aren't planning on having people ingest that stuff, right?" I asked.

"No, no," George said. "Maybe a stink bomb of some sort. It's going to be amazing."

Just then, another set of footsteps came down the stairs and they quickly shoved the vials of goo into Fred's bag for safekeeping. This time, it was Hermione and her eyes narrowed as soon as she saw Fred, George, and Lee.

"What are you up to now?" Hermione demanded.

"Nothing, we were talking to Emily and Neville," George said. "Is that a problem?"

"Emily - no, you wouldn't tell me," Hermione shook her head. "Neville - what are they up to?"

"Nothing," Neville said quickly.

"Fine," she huffed. "I'm going to get breakfast."

Without another word, she raced down the stairs leaving all of us just looking at her with amusement. If she could only realize that there really was no stopping Fred and George once they had their mind set on something.

* * *

Hermione seemed to be angry with us all through breakfast, Transfiguration, and Charms because she didn't say anything to us until we walked out for our Care of Magical Creatures lesson with Professor Grubbly-Plank. Of course, nothing other than a couple of large speeches about the importance of passing our OWL's had actually happened today.

"When do you think Hagrid's coming back?" Harry asked us on our way down to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"Dumbledore never mentioned anything about it during his speech the other day," Hermione said worriedly. "I hope that he's all right..."

"I'm sure that everything is fine," Ron said. "Don't you think that Dumbledore would have told us if something had happened to him?"

"It's hard to say," I said. "Dumbledore hasn't been around much lately."

"He's busy, I'm sure of it," Ron said.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed like Dumbledore was avoiding us lately. Then again, I hadn't really seen him during any of the meals since the day we arrived, so maybe I was just taking it too personally. Though it seemed a bit odd that he wasn't saying anything to us considering what happened last year...Ron was probably right...he was probably just busy.

When we stepped in the crowd of students that had already arrived, Professor Grubbly-Plank started off the lesson. Next to her, she pointed to a pile of what appeared to be twigs.

"Does anyone know what these are?" she asked the class.

Not to anyone's surprise, Hermione's hand shot up in the air as soon as the question left the teacher's mouth. Everyone else just looked towards the pile with a questioning look on their face until they suddenly began to move around. What stood before us were two wooden pixie-like creatures that began walking all around us, looking at us with the same curiosity that we saw.

"Ooooh!" Lavender said happily. "They're so pretty!"

Harry scoffed and I rolled my eyes. It's funny how she never found anything that Hagrid showed us interesting, but as soon as another teacher comes along everything becomes the greatest thing in the world.

"Miss Granger?" Professor Grubbly-Plank pointed to her.

"They are called Bowtruckles," Hermione answered. "They guard wand-trees."

"Correct - five points to Gryffindor," she smiled. "Does anyone know what they eat?"

"Woodlice or fairy eggs," Hermione answered.

"Good job - another five points," she said.

How did Hermione always know the right answers in every class that we took? It wasn't like this was new information that Hermione had all of the answers, but I had never really thought about how much time she had taken to actually learn this material. Of course, I tend to be that way with Potions, but that's only one subject - Hermione seemed to have researched every single subject that she had.

"That's why it's always a good thing to carry around woodlice if you wish to gather wood or leaves from these trees," Professor Grubbly-Plank said. "They can be really aggressive when they get angry. Your assignment for today is to sketch out their body parts with labels to each part - you may begin."

Everyone began to collect some woodlice and form groups to make their sketches of these animals. Instead of joining them, Harry and I gave each other one look of understanding and walked over to Professor Grubbly-Plank.

"Do you have a question?" she asked.

"Yes, we do," I said.

"Where is Hagrid?" Harry asked quickly.

"That's not really your concern," she said quickly as she walked over to help Dean, Seamus, and Neville with their Bowtruckle that seemed to be entertaining itself by hitting them in the head.

"Fine, we'll ask someone else," I muttered as I walked over to Ron and Hermione.

For the next few minutes of class, I quickly sketched a Bowtruckle and I was quickly interrupted by Malfoy and his cronies who were making jabs at Harry - something that I hadn't noticed

"Maybe the fat off got him into something that's even bigger than him," Malfoy sneered.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"That's none of your concern babe," Draco winked. "I'm sure you'll hear about it soon enough."

Where did Draco get the idea that he knew anything that was going on with Hagrid? Then again, it wasn't exactly a secret that his father was a Death Eater so I'm sure that he's getting his information there. But how did that relate to Hagrid? Did Dumbledore send him to do something that had to do with Voldemort? And Draco said that Hagrid may be messing with something that's bigger than him - what did that mean?

"Don't listen to him," Hermione said. "He's just trying to mess with your heads..."

"Maybe if we're lucky, he'll never come back," Draco laughed.

Some of his other Slytherin friends joined in with the laughing and mocking Hagrid while we all glared at them. Somehow, I believed that if they made one more comment that Harry would literally have steam rolling out of his head like they did on those cartoons that Dudley used to watch.

"If he says one more thing, I swear - " Harry said through clenched teeth.

"Harry - he's a prefect now," Hermione said. "You have to remember that he can get you in a lot of trouble now..."

"How did he get made a prefect...?" I mumbled under my breath. "Biggest git in the school..."

Luckily, we finished up our lesson not too much longer after that. When we turned in our papers, Harry stormed off from the area before I even had the chance to turn in my assignment. Hermione and Ron quickly followed behind him and I was the last one to turn mine in.

"Hey Potter - your brother seems a bit angry, why is that?" Draco sneered.

"You know perfectly well why he's angry," I snapped back. "Can't you learn to shut your mouth?"

"Where's the fun in that?" he asked with a smile.

"You're pushing the limit Malfoy," I said. "And your pissing me off."

"Is that not normal?" he asked.

"Just leave me alone," I said irritably. "And leave Hagrid out of your taunts - what has he ever done to you?"

"Hmmm...I don't know," he said with sarcasm. "Oh yeah - how about having that hippogriff kicking me in the arm."

"That was your fault and you know it," I said.

"Prove it," he said.

I rolled my eyes and walked quickly ahead to catch up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione who had stopped near the greenhouse that the fourth years were coming out of. Ginny had stopped to talk to them for a minute from what I could tell, but she was waving to them just as I stepped over. As soon as I got with the group, I saw why Ginny had left so suddenly. It was Luna.

"I believe you and Emily," Luna said suddenly to Harry. "I told Emily the other day, didn't I?"

"Er...yes," I said.

"Thanks..." Harry said awkwardly.

From behind me, I heard a massive laugh break out. When I turned around, I saw Lavender standing nearby looking directly over at us.

"Of course Loony Lovegood would believe that," she said to someone next to her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

She must not have noticed that I had heard her because she suddenly became embarrassed and her eyes became wide. It really is funny how she is so confident talking badly about us when she didn't think that we were listening, but as soon as she was confronted about it she seemed to shut down quickly.

"That's what I thought," I said angrily.

She started mumbling to her friend and they quickly began to walk away.

"Freak..." Lavender muttered.

Without hesitation, I whipped out my wand and said the first spell that came to mind.

"Furnunculus!" I said while pointing right at her.

Suddenly, a load of boils erupted onto her face and she started to scream. Before she or anyone outside of my group could see, I threw my wand back into my pocket. While hiding her face quickly, she ran through the corridors while some of the other students started laughing at her.

"Emily!" Hermione said.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"You are not allowed to use magic outside of class," she said. "I should be writing you up right now!"

"You wouldn't write her up if you had to," Ron said with a laugh.

"I should!" Hermione said.

"She deserved it Hermione," Harry said. "Maybe she'll think twice before she says anything about us next time."

With a sigh, Hermione just kept walked into the greenhouses where Professor Sprout was tending to a few of the plants. Not long after we walked in there, I noticed Neville walking into the room carrying his plant in hand. When Professor Sprout saw it, she looked happier than ever. When Neville walked over towards us he told us that she wanted to keep it for a little while so she could study it a bit.

"She's just going to keep it for a couple of days," Neville told me. "She said that she might even make a lesson out of it."

"That's great," I said with a smile. "Has she never seen one before?"

"She said that's she's been trying to get her hands on one for a while," he said.

For the rest of the class, Professor Sprout lectured to all of us how important the OWL's are just like every other professor has so far. It wasn't until just before the bell rang that I remembered that Harry and I had to go to detention at five o' clock tonight. Isn't that just wonderful...

I let off a sigh and put my head in my hands. Could things get any worse? This was only the beginning of the week too...

"What's the matter?" Ron whispered to me.

"I forgot about detention," I mumbled. "It's going to be awful..."

"Maybe you could get out of it if you do really good today," Ron said.

"I seriously doubt that," I said. "There's no way that toad would give us a break after what we said to her..."

"Well, it couldn't hurt to do a bit of sucking up to her," Ron said. "I'm sure that she's already told Fudge all about it."

"It isn't like he didn't know," I muttered.

"True..." he said.

When the bell rang for us to leave, Harry and I went right for the Great Hall so that we could get something to eat before we had to go to detention. Harry was caught by Angelina who was demanding to know why he wouldn't be able to make it to try-outs because of detention, so I just went to sit down by myself. As soon as I saw down, I was met by someone who was walking by.

"How is it that you managed to land detention for a week already?" Snape asked.

"Like you haven't been told," I said. "Everyone in the school knows what happened."

"You need to watch what you say around her - " he started.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "Professor McGonagall already told me.

"Well, it's true," he said. "She may not look threatening, but she has a lot of power."

"Why did Dumbledore hire her?" I asked.

"I think you already know why," Snape said.

"No one else would take the job?" I asked. "So he was forced to take her in."

"Exactly," Snape sighed. "Believe me, you aren't the only one who doesn't like her."

"I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't like her," I said sarcastically. "She's such a likable person!"

Snaps let out a snort just as I saw a flash of pink walk by and stop right behind Snape from the other side of the table. Umbridge threw on a fake smile and turned to Snape.

"Is there a reason that I'm always finding you speaking with this student?" she asked.

"Coincidence?" Snape suggested.

"Perhaps not," she said while narrowing her eyes. "Miss Potter - I do believe that you and your brother are due for detention shortly."

"We are aware of that," Harry said suddenly from behind me. "We just wanted to get something to eat quickly."

"Severus, I would like to have a word with you," Umbridge said happily. "I shall see the two of you at five."

She let out a short laugh before walking off. Snaps rolled his eyes and walked along with her. What did she want to talk to him about? I had this sickening feeling that it had to do with me.

"What was that about?" Harry asked.

"Umbridge is a cow, that's what it's about," I scoffed. "She needs to mind her own business."

Not long afterwards, Ron and Hermione came down to sit with us followed by Fred and George.

"Angelina is going off - have you spoken to her Harry?" Fred asked.

"Yeah," Harry said. "She was begging me to try to get out of detention."

"Sounds like Oliver," George laughed. "Maybe that's what the pressure of being captain does to you..."

"That or they're just all crazy," I suggested.

"Very possible," Fred nodded.

It felt like time flew by from there because when I checked the time, it was already five minutes until five and we had to get moving. Out of all of the things at Hogwarts to do, I think that this was the very worst. I would rather spend an entire day in Professor Binns class than go to detention with Professor Umbridge. I could only imagine what she had planned for us...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Tuesday or Wednesday. ATTENTION! I will be going to the beach for eight days starting on Thursday and I will not be posting chapters during that time. I will be posting one as soon as I can when I get back and I do hope that you'll stick with the story. This should be my last long trip for the summer, just so you know.**

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	14. Disagreements with Detention

**Disclaimer: If you haven't realized that I'm not J.K. Rowling by now, I have serious concerns for you. No, I don't own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 14**

When we made it to Umbridge's office, she was already there waiting for us. With a couple pieces of parchment in hand, she looked thrilled to have ruined our day judging by the smile that she had on her face when she handed them to us.

"Good evening," she said.

I shot her a look to show her that I didn't think that it was a 'good evening' at all, but it didn't seem to bring down her mood in the slightest.

"You may sit down," she said cheerfully.

Without a word, I sat down at the provided desk, but Harry had other plans. Before he even opened his mouth to ask the question, I knew that she wasn't going to give him the answer that he wanted.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you something first," he said while giving me a sideways look.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Well, the tryouts for the new Quidditch Keeper are coming up and the whole team is supposed to be there," he said nervously. "What I wanted to know was if I could maybe...do this another day so that I could be there..."

"Oh heavens no!" she said with enthusiasm. "Detention is not something that you can negotiate - it's supposed to be a punishment! I believe that missing that may actually enforce the meaning of this punishment. It'll make you think twice before spreading those awful, attention-seeking lies."

If the sight of her hadn't angered me enough, I think that just did the job. If I had no self control at all, I would be calling her every bad name that I could think of - but I kept Professor McGonagall and Snape's warning in mind and kept my mouth shut.

Harry looked like he was thinking about the same thing as he took a seat, glaring at her the entire time. With a small laugh, she went to go grab two black quills for us to use and handed them directly to us before taking a seat behind her desk.

"We don't have ink," Harry said irritably.

"You won't be needing any," she said with a cruel smile on her face.

"What do you want us to write?" I asked.

"I must not tell lies," she said simply.

"How many times?" Harry asked.

I gritted my teeth as I got ready to write the words on my piece of parchment, suppressing the urge to choke the life out of her.

"As many times as it takes for it to sink in," she said while narrowing her eyes.

Whatever that was supposed to mean. If she really thought that writing lines was going to erase our memory of Voldemort's return then she was seriously out of her mind. Without any more hesitation, I put the quill on my parchment and wrote out the words that she asked me to. Much to my surprise, the ink appeared red on the parchment.

That was when I suddenly felt a seering pain shoot through my hand. When I looked on the back of my hand, the words appeared there as though my handwriting had been carved right into my skin.

The ink is my blood.

I looked over at Harry in horror and his expression mirrored mine. This was the lady that the Ministry had sent over? I could hardly imagine that Dumbledore would ever allow anything like this - did he know that she did this sort of things to students?

"Problem?" she asked in a sickly sweet voice.

"No," I said through gritted teeth.

She smiled and continued to work on some of the papers that she had lying on her desk. Through gritted teeth, I continued writing the line over and over again. Each time that I wrote, the pain shot through my hand and the blood began to trickle down my hand. I quickly wiped it off and grimaced because it was raw.

When the light from the windows began to fade as the sun went down, my hand began to cramp and sting from all of the writing that I was doing. Finally, Umbridge spoke up when the moon began to rise.

"Let me see your hands," she said.

Both of us walked up and Harry handed his hand over first. Like mine, his was red and appeared to be trying to heal itself. Once she looked at mine, she shook her head in disapproval.

"I see that we have much more work to do," she said. "That will be all for tonight, I'll see you both tomorrow."

We handed in our work together and quickly exited the room without saying anything to her. Once we were out, Harry had no problem holding back his aggravation.

"I cannot believe what she has us doing," he muttered. "It's one thing for her to have me do it because I was the one who started it - but how can she do that to you?"

"Harry - I said just as much to her," I said. "You do realize what she's trying to do here?"

"Torture us?" he suggested irritably.

"Well, yes," I said. "But she wants to get a reaction out of us. She wants us to go complaining - she won't be satisfied until we report her."

"Because then she'll know that she got to us," Harry said in realization.

"Exactly," I said. "She wants to know that she's bothering us enough to go running to someone else. I don't know about you, but I'm not giving her that satisfaction."

"And you think I will?" Harry scoffed. "I don't care what that toad does to me."

When we got back to the common room, I quickly tried to finish up some of my homework, but I couldn't get much done because of how badly my hand was aching from detention. Harry didn't even attempt to get any done and went off to bed as soon as we got passed the Fat Lady.

The next morning I felt like I was going to pass out because of how tired I was, but I did everything I could to stat awake during breakfast. Hopefully some coffee would wake me up some.

"What did Umbridge have you doing?" George asked as he sat down next to me.

"Oh, just some lines," I said while pulling my sleeve up to cover the marks on my right hand.

"It could have been worse I guess," George shrugged.

Luckily he didn't notice all through breakfast and I managed to make it to Divination without being questioned. However, when we were looking through our dream diaries, someone else caught sight of my scarred hand.

"What is that?" Neville asked.

"What is what?" I asked quickly while covering up my hand with my sleeve.

"Your hand - what's wrong with it?" he demanded.

"Oh, I just scraped it on something," I lied. "It's not big deal."

Neville narrowed his eyes and grabbed my hand to pull my sleeve back. When he saw the mark on my hands, his eyes widened and he looked up at me in horror.

"I thought you only had to do lines," he said in a hallow voice.

"I do," I said irritably as I yanked my hand out of his grasp.

"Does George know about this?" he asked.

"How is that any of your concern?" I asked.

"He would be furious if he knew what she was doing to you," he said. "You need to tell someone about this."

"No I don't - it doesn't matter," I insisted.

"Like hell it doesn't," Neville said angrily. "This is barbaric - could you imagine if this got around?"

"Exactly," I said. "That's why I'm not telling anyone. Besides, I don't want Umbridge to think that she's gotten to me."

"Is that what this is about - pride?" he asked.

"It's none of your business Neville," I snapped. "So just stay out of it."

"Fine," Neville said looking hurt. "I'm sorry for giving a damn about you..."

He sat back in his chair and refused to look at me. Maybe I was too harsh. After all, he was only trying to help. At the same time, I felt that I was doing the right thing - wasn't I? Maybe I was being stubborn, but I still wasn't going to say anything to anyone because I didn't want Umbridge to be happy about anything.

When the bell rang for the end of class, Neville gathered up his things and left without even glancing in my direction. I felt an ache in my stomach for hurting him because he really was my best friend, but I just wish that he could understand where I was coming from.

"What's wrong with Neville?" Harry asked as we left the tower.

Ron was yelling at some first years for being loud, so I lowered my voice to make sure he didn't hear me.

"He saw my hand," I said.

"Oh..." Harry said.

The second detention was far worse than the first because the skin on my hand had tried to heal itself overnight just to break open again this time. So, in other words, it was completely red and inflamed to the point that I nearly wanted to scream. At least this time it didn't bleed.

When I left her office that night, I went straight to the common room without waiting for Harry who had stopped to talk to Ron who seemed to be roaming around the castle. To be honest, I was far too tired to talk at the moment.

When I reached the common room, I found Hermione talking with Neville. When they noticed me, they immediately stopped talking and both looked back at me.

"Hey," I said with a weak smile.

"Neville just told me about what Umbridge was making you do," Hermione said with a stern look. "And he's right Emily - you need to tell someone."

Neville immediately looked at the floor in embarrassment. Even though I still felt bad for snapping at him, this just made me angry that he brought Hermione into it.

"Why did you tell her?" I demanded from Neville.

"He's worried about you Emily," Hermione said. "And I am shocked that you haven't told me yourself. Is there a reason that you didn't want me to know?"

"Because I know how you react to these things," I said. "And I'm not in the mood to hear it to be perfectly honest."

"Why don't you want help?" Hermione asked.

"Because I don't need it," I said through gritted teeth.

"Yes you do," Hermione said. "Dumbledore would be mortified if he knew what she was doing to you and Harry. He would put an end to it - "

"Don't you get it?" I shouted. "This isn't just some stupid punishment for breaking the rules in class Hermione - this is much more than that! Umbridge is doing this because we stand for something that the Ministry doesn't and I'm not going to show any kind of weakness to make her think that I can't put up with people like her!"

Both of them were silent as they looked up at me. Neither of them could understand where I was coming from because they weren't in this situation. They weren't the ones that were constantly being called liars for trying to warn everyone of the horrible truth.

"Emily..." Hermione said weakly.

"I'm going to bed..." I mumbled as I walked passed them.

As tired as I was, I felt like it was impossible for me to fall asleep. I stayed awake while lying in my bed for a long time. I listened as Hermione walked into the room and a long while after that. Finally, deciding that I wasn't going to get any sleep, I decided to go take a walk. At this hour, I doubted that I would run into anyone.

When I stepped out of the Tower, the Fat Lady grumbled in her sleep as I opened and closed the portrait behind me. Once I made it a good distance away from the Gryffindor Tower I considered lighting up my wand, but then decided against it so I wouldn't wake up the other portraits and ended up walking with only the moonlight to guide my way. Finally, I decided to take a seat on a nearby window sill so that I could just look out the window at the stars that seemed to pop right out of the sky that didn't appear to have a single cloud floating by. I brought my legs up and wrapped my arms around them so that I could lean my head down on my knees and think.

I had never felt more exhausted before and somehow I couldn't bring myself to sleep because of everything that was going on. It was hard to believe how different things had gotten this year because of what had happened over the summer. It had only been about a week here and I felt like more of an outcast here than I did at the Dursleys' house - something that I never thought I would ever think. Even though I tried to put on a brave face, I noticed ever scoff and cold stare that I got from my so-called peers around the school. Harry and I were the jokes of the school - jokes of the wizarding world actually. It was all the Ministry's fault - the Minister's fault specifically. If he could just get over his fears, we could all prepare for what was to come, but we were all going to go into a great war without any preparation all because of his fears...

I was pulled away from my thoughts when I heard soft footsteps coming towards me. At this point, I could hardly care if it was Umbridge herself that was coming to yell at me for breaking the school rules - I felt like I had hit an all time low and nothing really mattered anymore. When I heard the footsteps stop next to me and felt someone sit on the opposite side of the window sill, I knew instantly that it wasn't the old toad here to punish me.

"Are you okay?" Snape asked.

"Do you want the truth?" I said softly as I looked up.

"That bad then?" he asked while turning his head to look out at the sky.

"Have you ever felt like everyone in the world is against you?" I asked without looking at him. "Like everyone hates you?"

"Not everyone hates you Emily," Snape sighed.

"I'm pretty sure the majority of the wizarding world hates me and my brother," I said.

"I think that you'd be surprised at how many people don't," he said. "A lot of people care about the two of you..."

For a moment, I actually thought about that seriously. Even though most of the people around seemed to think that we were a couple of frauds, people had come up to us to show us their support. They might not exactly be the most liked people like Luna, or maybe even people that we would expect like Ernie from Hufflepuff who had come up to Harry the other day to tell him that he didn't believe a word that the Prophet said about us. Then there were our closet friends that had already put their full trust in us without even a moments hesitation. Maybe that was what was keeping us going - the support from the people that we cared about.

"What did Umbridge say to you the other day?" I asked suddenly.

He gave me a sideways look and he seemed to look angry all of a sudden.

"It was about me," I said.

"She seems to think that I spend too much time around you," he said. "She told me that it isn't proper for a teacher to speak to a student as often as we speak to one another..."

"How is that any of her business?" I asked angrily.

"It isn't," Snape scoffed. "But apparently - since she works for the Ministry - she feels like she is superior to the rest of the staff. She is under the impression that she has the right to order us around."

"She told you not to speak to me anymore, didn't she?" I asked.

"That's basically what she was hinting at," he said. "Something about you being a dangerous student and how I shouldn't be associating myself around people like you."

"Dangerous?" I said with a laugh.

"She said that you are already getting enough attention elsewhere and that I did not need to interfere."

"You're kidding?" I laughed.

"I wish I was," he said. "It was almost like she was threatening me so that I wouldn't speak to you anymore."

"How was she threatening you?" I asked.

"She hinted that she made regular reports to the Minister about what was going on at the school," he said. "I think that she was trying to say that she was going to tell him that I was another target in this situation that we're in."

"That is unbelievable," I said under my breath.

He nodded in agreement and then began to look down at my hand. Forgetting about the scarring, I quickly tucked it away in my robes before he noticed. Then he grabbed onto my other wrist and grabbed ahold of the bracelet that I was wearing.

"You still wear this?" he asked with a ghost of a smile on his face.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked. "It was a gift - and you said that it was my mother's."

"It was..." he said with a frown.

"How...?" I started. "How did you...know my mother?"

He looked up at me and I could see something that I had only picked up on during small occassions - grief. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed like every time my mother was mentioned he would become strangely quiet and upset.

"We went to school together," he said in a hallow voice.

Although his sudden sadness made me want to stop questioning him, my burning curiosity kept me talking.

"Were you...friends?" I asked with hesitation.

"You could say that..." he murmured.

"What was she like?" I asked quietly.

For a moment I didn't think that he was going to answer me, but finally he started to speak as he looked out of the window with the same hallow look in his eyes that I had seen so many times before.

"You remind me of her..." he said in almost a whisper. "She was very clever for her age. She outdid me in potions most of the time, but she was very humble about it - didn't like to admit that she was the best in the class. She was very beautiful too - all of the boys loved her, but she hardly seemed to notice at all... She was also very funny at times, always had a way of bringing a smile to someone's face - I remember she used to make me laugh all of the time when I would get upset about something...but she always knew when to be serious when we were talking...Lily helped me through a lot with my family...through everything really...she was always there for me...I just wish that I could have been there for her..."

He trailed off and seemed to be lost in his memories as I stared at him in amazement. It seemed amazing to me that he had known my mother like this. Although he hadn't said all that much, it was more than I had ever expected him to say.

"Do you miss her?" I asked almost inaudibly.

He nodded and didn't open his mouth to say anything. For a moment, I almost thought that he was going to start crying, but he didn't. He just looked ahead with a glaze over his eyes like he was living in another time - living with her again.

"You should be in bed," he said after a moment.

"I know," I said.

Without any sort of argument, I stood up and began to walk back to the Gryffindor common room. When we got to the portrait of the Fat Lady, he surprised me by actually giving me a small and hesitant hug before I walked through the portrait.

"Goodnight Emily," he said with a smile.

"Goodnight Severus," I smiled.

When I walked up to my dormitory, my mind felt suddenly clear of all of the problems that I had gone through this year. When I laid down in my bed, all I could think about was how my mother had really been good friends with Snape. Of course, I had sort of figured that out a while ago, but I had never actually had my thoughts confirmed until tonight. But what had happened that had taken them apart from one another? They had said before that Snape had been a Death Eater - was that what made their friendship crumble? Or did it have something to do with my father?

Without coming to a conclusion, I finally fell asleep for the first time in a while without a single nightmare to wake me up.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I should have one more chapter up EARLY Thursday morning before I had out to the beach - but I'm not going to make any promises. That's what I am aiming for though. Just in case you all didn't know, I am going to be gone for 8 days where I will not be updating the story - but I will be writing more during that time so that I can post it once I return from my trip. After that, I don't think that I will be having anymore lengthly trips.**

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	15. The Keeper

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 15**

When Friday finally came around, my only relief was that tonight was going to be my last detention with Umbridge. Other than that, nothing had changed. Hagrid was still nowhere to be found, Neville wasn't talking to me, Umbridge was a cow, and everyone hated me - just an average day.

When I walked down to breakfast that morning, I was only greeted by Fred, George, and Lee who were testing more students with new products before Hermione woke up.

"I thought you weren't testing first years?" I asked as I sat next to George on the couch.

"I thought you didn't care," he said with a grin as he put his arm around me.

"Well, it's a little messed up to take advantage of how naive they are," I shrugged. "But who am I to go preaching to people about the rules."

"Yeah, Miss I-Got-Detention-On-The-First-Day," Fred laughed as he tried to heal up another kids bleeding nose. "I don't even think we've ever done that before."

"Oh no," George said in realization. "You mean that she beat one of our records?"

"I believe she did," Fred sighed. "But we didn't have Umbridge on the first day..."

"True - the woman is crazy," George scoffed.

"You're telling me," I mumbled as I subconsciously rubbed my hand.

"Did you see if Hermione was awake yet?" Lee asked as he popped a pill into the mouth of a first year that had grown massive pimples all over his face.

"No, but you should expect her soon," I said. "She doesn't usually sleep that much later than I do."

"Okay, let's pack this up boys," Fred ordered.

All of the first years that were around began to scatter as all of the materials were put into a bag with the wave of a wand. Fred threw the bag on his back and we began to walk out of the common room before Hermione even crossed the room.

"Do you really think that she would tell Mum what we are doing?" Fred asked.

"It wouldn't surprise me," George said as he took a hold of my hand.

"Are you going to hold my hand too?" Fred asked with a huge smile on his face.

"Do you have to ruin everything?" George asked.

"I'm your brother," Fred said simply. "That's my job."

George rolled his eyes as we walked down another flight of steps leading down to the Great Hall. As usual, not many people were there at this hour other than a few people scattered around different tables. I was surprised to see Draco with Crabbe and Goyle at the Slytherin table. It was even more shocking when he gave me a smile as I walked through the door. I gave him one back and a small wave with the hand that George wasn't holding.

"What was that about?" George asked as he eyed Draco suspiciously.

"No idea," I laughed. "He's a freak."

"You can say that again," he said as we took our usual seat at the Gryffindor table.

I grabbed a muffin from a nearby platter just as I noticed Harry walking into the Great Hall alone. When he got closer to us, I noticed just how disgruntled he looked and there really wasn't much mystery as to why - he was going to be missing the Quidditch try-outs today for the Keeper.

"Still couldn't get out of detention mate?" George asked as Harry took a seat across from us.

"Of course not," Harry grunted. "Angelina has been going crazy about it."

"Who would have guessed that she would turn out to be as mental as Oliver?" Fred sighed.

Before long, more people began to file into the Great Hall as time passed and as soon as Fred and George were fully engrossed in a conversation with Lee, Harry spoke up to me.

"Did you here who's trying out for Keeper?" Harry asked.

"No, who?" I asked.

"Ron," Harry said while making sure that no one else was listening. "He's been sneaking off to practice for it for days."

"Do you think that he's going to get it?" I asked.

"It's hard to say," Harry shrugged. "I haven't seen him play all that much. Well, he's played while we were at the Burrow, but I'm not too sure how serious he was being with that."

"That's true," I said. "It would be great if he got it - I know how much he likes Quidditch."

"I just wish I could be there when he tries out," he grumbled. "Why couldn't detention have ended yesterday?"

"At least you asked," I said with a sigh.

It's funny how a day flies by when your hoping that it will drag on. Detention seemed to come by faster than I expected and it seemed to last longer than five History of Magic lessons put together - and this one was the worst one yet because the writing on my hand seemed to have dug in deep and the blood was now running down my hands when I was trying to write.

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

Harry seemed to hate this even more than I did if that was even possible. But I didn't really have anything that I really wanted to do at the moment, nothing pressing anyway. Then again, it would have been nice to actually have seen Ron try out - it would really mean the world to him if he made the team. Imagine how happy his parents would be - a prefect and a Quidditch player all in one year!

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

I can tell you one thing that wasn't a lie - it took all the energy that I had not to stab Umbridge in the arm with this quill. To think that I'm not usually that violent of a person - I had to keep that in mind as I had the mental image of screaming at her and throwing the desk around just to show how irritated I was.

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

I wonder if Ron had gone up to try-out yet. Judging by the hour, I knew that they were already well through. I hope that he did well...

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

The blood was now oozing out of my hand and I scribbled on the paper irritably as the blood was running onto the parchment. Just when I thought that my hand was never going to quit aching or bleeding, Umbridge finally spoke up.

"Let's see," she said with her hand out for ours.

Harry, who was eager to see what the results were for the Quidditch team, quickly dropped his quill and held out his hand. The blood and scarring was just as bad on his hand as it was on mine. I felt a surge of hatred knowing that it was her fault that my brother was in pain. Clenching my teeth together, I held my hand out next to Harry's.

She grabbed onto his hand and looked at the scars intently as though she was determining if they would do permanent damage. When she placed her porky fingers on the words, my hand immediately shot up to a completely different scar and Harry jumped back from her grasp.

"It hurts, doesn't it," she said with false concern as she eyed the two of us.

Harry and I looked at each other and then back at her. Maybe it was best that she thought that the pain was because of her. It wasn't like we were going to actually bring up what had just happened to her.

"Let me see yours Miss Potter," she demanded.

I kept my hand far enough away from her so that she couldn't grab a hold of it and she only glanced at it for a moment or two before she nodded.

"I believe that I have made my point," she nodded. "I hope that this will make you think twice before you misbehave again - you may leave."

We quickly grabbed our things and were out of her room within seconds. As soon as we put some distance between ourselves and her office, we both looked at one another in shock.

"You don't think...?" he asked.

"That she could be...one of them?" I asked.

It hadn't occurred to me that maybe she could be working for Voldemort's side until just a moment ago. Had our scars suddenly began to hurt us because of her taking Harry's hand? Could she be directly involved with Voldemort - maybe even being controlled by him at this very moment? It was really hard to say.

We didn't say anything else before we made it to the Gryffindor Tower and into the common room where we were greeted by a load of people who appeared to be celebrating. Ron was the first one that ran up to us.

"I did it!" he said with a giant smile on his face. "I am Gryffindor's new Keeper!"

"Congratulations!" I said, genuinely happy for him.

"That's fantastic!" Harry said.

Even with what had just happened in mind, we did our best to hide it so that Ron could enjoy this moment properly - he had finally done something that he had wanted to for a long time and he deserved to be happy without us ruining it for him.

"Where are Fred and George?" I asked.

"They went down to the kitchen to get some food," he said as we set our things down. "They'll be back in a minute or two."

Angelina walked over to have a word with Harry, so I walked over to a couch and looked down at my hand to assess the damage. How was I going to hide this from George? If he saw this when he got back, he was going to panic.

"Here, let me help," someone said as they sat next to me.

It was Neville. He grabbed a hold of my hand and I winced in pain at the touch. He looked at me apologetically as he grabbed for an empty bowl nearby and waved his wand for water to appear in it.

"I'm not a Healer, so this is the best I can do at the moment," he said as he conjured a rag.

He dipped the rag in water and pressed it down onto my hand and held some pressure on it. I winced for a moment, but after a moment it wasn't too bad. Once he took the rag off, the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

He picked up his wand again and, after a few tries, he transfigured the rag into a sort of bandage that he began to wrap around my hand to cover up the marks.

"There you go," he said. "It's not the best...but I suppose that it'll cover it for the time being..."

"Thank you," I said in a small voice.

He gave me a smile and looked back around the room. Everyone seemed to be having a great time and Harry even managed to put on a happy face for Ron. At the moment, he seemed to be talking to Hermione about something serious considering the looks on their faces.

"Neville," I said. "I'm sorry about snapping on you the other day...I know that you were only trying to help..."

"It's okay..." he said. "But you should know that I still think you should have told someone...but I sort of understand your reasoning..."

With a smile, I gave him a hug and he gladly returned it. It was nice to have my best friend back. Once we let go, I noticed that Fred and George had come back with a load of food, much to Hermione's disapproval, but she just rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Oh no George," Fred said jokingly as he pointed towards Neville who had his arm around me. "I see we have a bit of competition going on for your lady."

"Here we go again," I laughed and rolled my eyes.

"Oh can it Fred," George laughed. "So, I guess the two of you are friends again? It better be just friends Longbottom."

Neville just laughed and went over to grab some pumpkin juice as George sat down in his place and gave me a grin as he pur his arm around my shoulders.

"You come around here often, beautiful?" he asked with a wink.

"Only when a certain red head is around," I smiled.

"I'm quite the catch, aren't I?" he said with an exaggerated sigh.

"What makes you think I was talking about you?" I laughed.

He gave me a double take before he turned and looked around at his twin brother who was in a heavy conversation with a small group of first years. I hope that Hermione didn't notice.

"I should have known,' he said dramatically.

I rolled my eyes and leaned in to give him a small kiss. He placed his forehead against mine and brushed his fingers along my jaw line with a smile on his face.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you too."

He leaned in and kissed me again - this time longer than the last. As he deepened the kiss, I felt his hands running slowly down my back as I began to run my hand through his hair as his tongue pushed through my lips.

"That's foul," I heard Fred say not too far away.

"He's eating my sister's face," Harry's voice sounded from next to Fred's with a hint of disgust.

George gave them both an inappropriate gesture with his hands without taking his lips off of mine and then returned his hand to me where he pulled me closer to him. We continued this for a few more minutes before someone said something else to interrupt us.

"Oi - get a room!" Ron said.

"Can we?" George asked when we separated.

"Watch it Weasley," Harry said as he walked passed us. "You're already pushing your limits by snogging my sister right in front of me."

"Who said that you had to watch?" I asked with a laugh.

"I'm not watching," Harry said irritably as he sat down next to Ron who was talking to Neville about something. "It's kind of hard to miss."

I sat back against the couch and leaned my head against George's shoulder as all of the guys started talking about Quidditch. It was amazing how much they could talk about this...

"What happened to your hand?" George asked after a few minutes.

"Oh, nothing," I said looking at it. "I just scraped it on something."

"Did you go to the hospital wing?" he asked.

"No, it wasn't that big of a deal," I shrugged, trying to be convincing. "I figured that it should be okay like this?"

"Do you want me to take a look at it?" he asked. "I remember a few spells that Mum used to use on us when we hurt ourselves."

"Oh no, it's fine," I said.

"Okay, have it your way," he said with a small chuckle.

I felt Neville's eyes boring into mine and I suddenly felt bad for lying to George, but at the same time I thought that it was best that he didn't know the truth. I'm sure that he would have gone off if he had known what happened. Neville just shook his head as he grabbed onto his plant next to him and started to tend to that.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up early as I usually did and I was shocked to see that Harry was awake as well. He was sitting in an arm chair around the fire with a piece of parchment and a quill in hand. He appeared to be reading through it and quickly hid it once he saw me.

"Oh, it's only you," he said.

"Who's the letter for?" I asked him.

"Snuffles," Harry said. "I reckon that he would want to know about what happened last night with our scars. Could you read through this and tell me if you think an outsider could decipher this?"

I took the letter from him and sat in the couch next to him and read through it quickly. From what I could tell, if this letter was to be intercepted, no one would have a clue what it was about. Harry had done a good job on making the subject very vague.

"That's good," I nodded in approval as I handed it back to him.

"Okay, I guess I'll take it to the Owlery," Harry said as he sealed it into an envelope.

"Do you want me to go with you?" I asked.

"Sure," he said as he stood up.

Together we walked through the portrait and Harry stuck the note inside his pocket as we walked.

"I talked to Hermione about what happened," Harry said after a minute or two. "She thinks that we should tell Dumbledore."

"That seems to be what everyone is thinking," I rolled my eyes.

"Did you tell George what happened?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"Er...no," I said. "I didn't want him to panic..."

Harry opened his mouth to say something else but stopped when we saw someone else coming through the hallway. From the opposite side of the hallway, I could see the familiar face of Cho Chang. When I looked over at Harry, he looked suddenly happier than he had in a long time.

"Hi Harry," she smiled when she caught up with us as we walked into another corridor. "Where are you two going?"

"T-to the Owlery," Harry said, still looking transfixed.

"Actually, I think that I'm going to get some breakfast," I said.

"Oh, okay," Cho said sounding cheerful. "I'll see you later Emily."

I nodded and with a smile and a wink at Harry, I walked off into another corridor to go to the Great Hall. Of course, I could have waited for breakfast, but I wasn't really interested in being a third wheel and I figured that the two of them could use some time alone. Unlike Harry, I didn't like to interfere with people's relationships.

When I walked into the Great Hall, I found myself one of only a few people in there. I was shocked to see Draco alone at the Slytherin table. Where were Crabbe and Goyle? They usually followed him around like a couple of flies.

"Hey Emily," he called to me as he walked over to me suddenly.

"Er...hey Draco," I said awkwardly.

"What's this that Weasley is the new Gryffindor Keeper?" he said looking a bit smug.

"It's true," I said. "And he's really good."

Of course, I was only saying this because that was what Hermione had told me. I'd never actually seen Ron play aside from at the Burrow, but I wasn't going to let Draco know that.

"He better hope so," Draco said. "Slytherin is going to be better than ever this year."

"Why - have your players actually learned how to fly?" I asked as I sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"Please, let's not forget your own brother's face plant into the ground," Draco scoffed as he sat down next to me. "How many times has he fallen off his broom now?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "How many times has he beaten the Slytherin team."

"Don't worry - it won't happen again," he said as his eyes narrowed.

"We'll have to see about that," I laughed as I picked up a blueberry muffin and held another one out to him. "Want one?"

"You can't deny that we're your biggest competition in Quidditch," Draco said as he took the muffin from me and took a bite from it.

"Yeah, but we still beat you in the end," I said smugly.

"Why didn't you ever try out for Quidditch?" he asked. "You fly pretty good, don't you?"

"Better than you," I smiled.

"Ha ha," he said sarcastically. "Keep dreaming Potter - but really, why not?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "It's not really my thing...besides, I wouldn't want to show off my amazing skill."

"You're a riot," he said with an eye roll. "But you should consider it, maybe next year?"

"I don't know, maybe," I shrugged. "No promises about that..."

"Crabbe and Goyle are here, so I'll talk to you later," Draco said as he stood up.

"Yeah, you wouldn't want to be caught talking to a filthy half-blood," I chuckled.

"That would be awful, wouldn't it?" he laughed.

"Stay blonde," I called to him.

"Stay ginger," he said and gave me a wave as he walked over to his friends.

I laughed as I took another bite of my blueberry muffin. I really don't think I would ever understand Draco Malfoy. His personality was just about as confusing as my life...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I'm not going to be updating for a little over a week because I'm going to be going to the beach, so I hope that I left off on a good chapter. I'm going to go ahead and apologize for my sorry attempt at a Emily/George moment - you should note that I'm dreadful at writing anything romantic, but I hope that it wasn't the worst that you've read.**

**Just so you all know, I am planning on writing the follow up series that I was talking about before about the next generation. I'm going to start that up once I'm finished writing this series. It would probably be a bit awkward if I started that before then. I hope that you all will read that one!**

**Anyway, I figured that I should leave you all with something to think about why I'm off on vacation - is there anything that you hope to happen later in this story? Any suggestions? Maybe a question about where I might be going with the story? Maybe a suggestion on a title for the next generation story that I'm going to be writing after this series? Just leave it in a review or send me a PM or maybe go and say something to me through my Twitter/Tumblr account!**

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	16. Umbridge Needs to Mind Her Own Business

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 16**

It wasn't long after Draco had gone over to the Slytherin table that Ron came into the room looking more nervous than I had ever seen him before. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it looked as though he was going to snap at any moment. It was even more shocking when he didn't pick up food as soon as he sat down.

"What's wrong with you?" I laughed as he sat down across from me.

"N-nothing," he muttered. "Where's Harry?"

"Talking to his lady love," I said with a chuckle. "Seriously, you look like you're going to puke."

"Fine, it's about Quidditch practice," he huffed. "I'm nervous - so what?"

"What is there to be nervous about?" I asked. "It's just going to be your team."

"I'm sure that Slytherin is going to send out some people to watch us," Ron said nervously. "But that's not what I'm concerned about..."

"Then what is it?" I asked.

"What if they see that I'm really not good enough?" he asked. "What if they kick me off the team?"

"Ron - you already made the team," I said. "And you _just_ tried out for the position - they already think that you're good enough."

"What if that was just dumb luck that I did well during the try-outs?" he asked.

"You're going to be fine," I said. "Harry was the same way when he made the team - you shouldn't worry so much."

Of course, that statement was only partially true. Sure, Harry was nervous - but that usually only happened when he was going out to play a game. I don't recall him ever being nervous about practicing with his own team. Actually, he seemed more excited than anything else - maybe it was because he was the only first year playing.

"Maybe you should just head out a little early with Harry for practice," I suggested. "It'll calm your nerves."

"That's a good idea..." Ron nodded.

Not too much later after that, I caught sight of Fred and George walking into the Great Hall looking slightly disgruntled about something. Once I saw Hermione trailing slowly behind them having an in-depth conversation with a nervous looking Neville, I understood why.

"Morning," George said as he kissed me on the forehead and sat down next to me.

Fred followed close behind and mimicked his brother's actions by kissing me on the forehead, gaining a look from George as he sat on the

"Watch yourself," George warned.

Fred laughed as he turned over to Lee who was sitting across from him and started talking about whatever came to his mind. George rolled his eyes and grabbed a strawberry muffin that was sitting in front of him.

"What's up with Hermione?" I asked. "Did she catch you experimenting on first-years again?"

"No, but she nearly caught us when Neville was giving us that plant's pus," George said.

"Ah, so is that what she is interrogating him?" I asked while glancing at Neville with pity.

"Exactly," he sighed. "I just hope that he can lie well enough..."

Hermione and Neville finally reached the table and stopped talking, much to Neville's apparent relief, once they sat down.

"I know that you all are up to something," Hermione glared at George. "Why can't you leave Neville out of it?"

"What are you talking about Hermione?" I asked.

"Your boyfriend is dragging Neville into his pranking business," Hermione said sternly. "And I don't approve of it and neither should you."

"Where did you come up with that idea?" I asked innocently.

"I saw them talking to him in the common room," Hermione threw a look at Neville. "And I _know_ that they're up to something."

"We were just talking," George said. "Can't a few friends just meet in the common room to talk?"

"Don't try to trick me Weasley," Hermione snapped. "I'm not an idiot!"

Luckily, at that moment Harry sat down next to Ron and Hermione and seemed to break the tension between everyone. It probably had to do with the fact that Harry had the funniest expression on his face.

"What are you looking so happy about?" Hermione asked.

"Umm...Quidditch later..." Harry muttered.

"And Cho Chang..." I coughed.

Harry rolled his eyes and went to talking to Ron and George laughed.

"Isn't that the Ravenclaw Seeker?" he asked me.

"The very one," I smiled.

"And Harry fancies her?" he asked.

"He has for a while now," I said. "It's like his brain falls out of his skull whenever she comes around. You should have seen his face when she ran into us in the corridors this morning."

George laughed and then I turned back to Harry who was still talking to Ron. Although I had missed their short conversation, I had a feeling that it had to do with them going out early for practice. It was probably not in my best interest to comment on it now because I know that George would be all over him if he knew that he was nervous about it.

"Come on George - we have things to do," Fred said as he walked up to him.

"Alright, I'll see you later babe," George said and gave me a quick kiss before walking off.

"See you later Emily!" Fred called as they left the room.

Hermione looked like she wanted to follow them but just then, a stream of owls flew into the Great Hall and dropped mail all over the place. Neither Harry nor I got anything, but I made sure to give Hoot some of my toast so she wouldn't be angry with me when she flew off. As usual, Hermione received the _Daily Prophet_ and it landed on our table with a giant thud when it knocked over a few empty goblets nearby.

"Anything to report?" I asked Hermione as she scanned through the paper.

"Nothing really..." she said as she continued to read. "Just a bunch of rubbish so far - oh no!"

"What?" Harry asked.

"Sirius - look," she said.

Harry went to snatch the paper from her, but she held onto it as she quickly read through the article.

"What does it say?" I asked anxiously.

"It says that the Ministry received a tip from a reliable source that Sirius was spotted in London," Hermione said quickly.

"Oh no..." I said. "I knew that someone was bound to have recognized him at the station."

"I'll bet our whole vault at Gringotts that it was Lucius Malfoy," Harry scoffed. "I'm sure that Wormtail has already told all the Death Eaters about Sirius's disguise..."

"Look at this!" Hermione gasped as she pointed to another article.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione quickly read what she was pointing at and then passed it over so that I could read it.

_TRESPASS AT MINISTRY_

_Sturgis Podmore, 38, of number two, Laburnum Gardens, Clapham, has appeared in front of the Wizcngamot charged with trespass and attempted robbery at the Ministry of Magic on 31st August. Podmore was arrested by Ministry of Magic watchwizard Eric Munch, who found him attempting to force his way through a top-security door at one o'clock in the morning. Podmore, who refused to speak, in his own defence, was convicted on both charges and sentenced to six months in Azkaban._

**(Directly from the book - all rights to J.K. Rowling)**

When I finished reading through it, the other three were already talking about what was in it.

"Six months for trying to get through a door - that's a bit harsh isn't it?" Harry said.

"But what was he trying to get through it at one in the morning for?" I asked. "Do you think that it had something to do with the...Order?"

I had to quiet down to make sure that no one else was listening in. It probably wouldn't be the greatest news if anyone heard us talking about this.

"I think that they were just framing him," Ron said angrily. "They knew that he was involved with Dumbledore and they were bound to have just made something up so that they could send him to Azkaban."

"It would make sense..." Hermione said as she put the _Prophet _away. "Now how about we get started on our homework - as I recall, you all have a pile of it to get done and I have to finish some up myself."

Harry and Ron looked at one another and then back at Hermione.

"We were actually going to head out for Quidditch a bit early..." Ron said nervously. "I'm sure that we could get it done tonight..."

"Yeah, I suppose..." Harry said.

Hermione rolled her eyes as they got up to go out to the Quidditch pitch. Unfortunately, I didn't have the excuse of Quidditch to get me out of doing school work.

"Neville - would you like to join us?" Hermione asked him.

"Er...sure," Neville said.

"I could use some help on that essay for self-fertilizing shrubs," I told him.

'Oooh, I have to do that one too," Hermione said. "We should start with that one."

It was almost funny how excited Hermione got to do homework. Although I had finished a good amount recently, I was still dreading the pile that I had waiting in the common room. When we got up to go, I noticed that another group was going somewhere as well.

"Why, hello Potter," Draco said with a smirk as our paths met.

"What are you up to Malfoy?" Hermione asked in disgust.

"Oh nothing," he said. "We were just on our way to the Quidditch pitch."

"We heard that there is a new Keeper," Crabbe said.

"And we figured that it would be funny to watch him fail," Draco said.

"He's a ginger, so he's bound to be bad," Goyle laughed.

"Wow, I didn't realize that the ape could talk," I scoffed.

It seemed to take a minute for him to actually understand what I said, but his face scrunched up in anger when he discovered that I was insulting him.

"Insult him all you want," Draco shrugged. "It isn't going to change the fact that the Gryffindor team is awful."

"So what does that make the Slytherin team?" Hermione asked.

"Was I talking to you?" Draco asked in disgust.

"You are now," Hermione retorted.

"You filthy little - " he started.

"What is going on here?" someone asked from behind me.

We all turned around to see Snape glaring down at all of us. As usual, he probably expected that a fight was going to start between us. It wouldn't exactly be the first time.

"Nothing at all, Professor Snape," Draco said.

"Then I suggest that you all move along," Snape said. "You're blocking the door."

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle all smirked as they continued to walk out of the door towards the Quidditch field. I could only hope that they wouldn't be too harsh on Ron - he was already nervous enough as it was.

"Did you read the _Prophet_?" I asked Snape.

"I might have glanced through it," he said.

"Anything catch your eye?" I asked.

"Maybe a couple of things..." he said vaguely.

"Do you think it was a set-up?" I asked, knowing that he would know what I was talking about.

"Might have been," he shrugged. "It's really hard to say at this point. I might need to do a bit of researching."

"Tell me if you find anything," I said.

"And I'm sure you saw the article about the dog being seen," Snape said.

"I might have glanced at it," I said.

"Maybe he should consider staying inside where he won't be recognized," he said.

"Maybe if someone would stop bothering him about it, he might be more keen to follow the rules," I said while glaring at him.

"I'm sorry - is there a problem here?" an annoyingly cheerful voice asked suddenly.

I turned to see a flash of pink and knew instantly that it was Umbridge. She was deliberately smiling at all of us.

"I was merely telling Miss Potter here that she and her friends were blocking the doorway," Snape said cooly.

"Well, they should be moving along then, shouldn't they?" Umbridge said as she glared at us while keeping that smile plastered on her face. "Unless of course, they would like detention."

"I don't think that would be necessary," Snape said.

"Not listening to a teacher's orders is definitely a good reason for detention," she said. "Or am I wrong?"

"I believe that that would be my decision being as I am the teacher in this situation Dolores," Snape said through gritted teeth.

"You don't seem to be enforcing any of the rules at the moment Severus," she said with a fake smile. "And I don't believe that you are capable of doing so with this particular student."

"Actually, he has given me detention before," I pointed out.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't talking to you Miss Potter," she snapped.

"Well, I am the topic of this conversation, am I wrong?" I asked.

"I will not tolerate a smart mouth," Umbridge said. "In fact, I am about a second from giving you detention myself."

"For what?" I asked.

"I don't believe that is necessary Dolores," Snape said. "I have this under control, you may carry on with what you were doing."

"Well, if you won't give her detention, then I most certainly - " she started while ignoring Snape's comment completely.

"You are scheduled a detention this evening with me Miss Potter - is that understood?" he said.

"Yes sir," I said.

Looking satisfied with herself, she walked away towards the staff table where Professor McGonagall looked like she wanted to run away as soon as the woman in pink sat next to her.

"Do I really have detention?" I asked Snape.

"I'm sure that she will make sure you do," he said irritably.

"Fine, I'll see you later then..." I muttered as we finally walked away from the area.

Once we were out of the Great Hall and walking towards the Gryffindor Tower, Hermione and Neville seemed to have finally found their voices.

"What was that about?" Neville asked.

"You weren't even doing anything wrong," Hermione said. "Besides - we were there too, why didn't she threaten us with detention?"

"I don't know," I said. "Umbridge only wanted Snape to give me detention because she feels that he treats me differently than the other students."

"So what?" Neville asked. "How is that her concern?"

"She thinks that him being friendly towards you could be a threat to the Ministry," Hermione said. "Doesn't she?"

"She feels that any friendship that Harry and I have is a direct threat to the Ministry," I said.

"That's rubbish," Neville said.

It wasn't that she had actually said anything to me regarding my relationship with Snape, but I'm sure that she didn't like it only because she felt that it meant someone else being on my side rather than the Ministry's. I'm not really sure how detention with Snape was really going to change anything, but if that's what she wants...

Once we got up to the common room, I found that it was practically vacant. Being that it was a nice day outside, I'm sure that everyone would rather be out there as opposed to being locked in the common room doing homework.

It felt like a lifetime had passed when we finally finished up doing all of our work. Hermione finished first and, once she was done, she immediately got to work on the hats for the elves. When she went upstairs to get some more material, I finally spoke up.

"So what's Hermione been bugging you about?" I asked.

"She suspects that I'm involved with what Fred and George are doing," Neville said.

"Which isn't wrong," I laughed.

"No, but she doesn't know that," he said. "I told her that they were asking about something for their Herbology class - I couldn't think of anything else."

"And she isn't buying it?" I asked.

"Of course not," he sighed.

"Just don't change your story," I said. "She'll have to leave you alone eventually."

A second later, Hermione walked down the stairs with some more thread in hand. She sat down in a nearby armchair and got to work immediately. Since we had finished our homework, we packed our things away and took a seat on a couch nearby.

"Want to help?" she asked us cheerfully as she finished another hat.

"Er..." we both said at once.

Luckily, we were saved when Harry and Ron came into the common room. Ron no longer appeared to be nervous, but he seemed to be disgruntled and upset.

"How did it go?" I asked them.

"It was awful," Ron said.

"Well, you can't expect to do your best when it was your first practice," Hermione said.

"Who said that it was me?" Ron demanded.

"Oh, I didn't mean - " Hermione said going red in the face.

"I get it, you just expected me to do awful," Ron said angrily.

"No, Ron - " Hermione started.

"Save it," he muttered as he barged up the steps towards the dormitories.

"Was he that bad?" I asked Harry.

"Well...he probably could have done better..." he said awkwardly.

"Where is everyone else?" I asked.

"I expect they are in the hospital wing," Harry said.

"What?" I asked in surprise.

"Katie's nose was bleeding," he explained. "Fred gave her some pill to stop it and it got a lot worse so they took her to the hospital wing."

"Wonderful," I said.

I expect that Fred had attempted to give her the antidote to their nosebleed pill and it either didn't work or he gave her the wrong half of it. Of course, I wasn't going to ask in front of Hermione - she would go insane if she knew about it.

"Shouldn't you be going?" Hermione asked me.

I looked up at the clock and I suddenly remembered that I had to be in Snape's office in ten minutes. It would probably take at least five to get there.

"Going where?" Harry asked.

"Detention with Snape," I rolled my eyes.

"What?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"It's Umbridge's fault," I explained. "She was threatening to give me detention if Snape didn't - it was all a complete mess."

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Nothing," Hermione said. "Umbridge saw that she was talking to Snape and she got angry. Apparently she feels that he is too friendly towards her and is aiming to correct it."

"In other words, she's trying to get him to hate me like everyone else does," I said.

"And making you have detention with him is going to do what?" Harry asked. "Won't that give you more time around him?"

"I don't know how her brain works," I said. "But I have to go - I'll explain more later."

With that, I left the room and headed towards the dungeons to my "detention." Once I got there, I was shocked to see that someone in bright pink was already there.

"Hello...?" I said as I stepped through the door.

"Ah, hello Miss Potter," Umbridge said with a sickly smile.

From behind his desk, Snape appeared to be glaring at the woman. What was she doing down here? I could only hope that she wasn't staying. The only thing that I knew for sure was that she couldn't enforce her sort of detention on me. There was no way that Snape would allow it.

Or would he?

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I know that this chapter is sort of random - it might have to do with the fact that I'm still a bit scatter brained from all that traveling :p Either way, I thought that a bit of a random switch up in events would be interesting. I hope that it was clear on the reasoning that Umbridge wanted to give Emily detention - if not, I'll tell you that it was because she detests the relationship between Snape and Emily and is trying to somehow break it off. So, what do you think that Umbridge is doing there? Do you even like this random turn in events - give me your thoughts!**

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	17. Nothing Can Be Done

**Disclaimer: I am not the owner of Harry Potter. Obviously.**

**Chapter 17**

I stepped further into the room and shot a questioning look over to Snape as if to ask why she was there. Once I set my things down on the front desk, I looked back up at the two professors hoping that at least one of them would explain what was going on, preferably the one that wasn't wearing an awful pink cardigan. When neither of them spoke up quickly, I decided to start the questioning.

"May I ask what you are doing here Professor Umbridge?" I asked in a mockingly polite voice.

"Oh, no particular reason," she said with a smile. "I simply wished to have some company while I grade my papers - that is all."

It didn't take any sort of genius to know that she was lying through her teeth. She wasn't there for the company - she just wanted to watch over us. Snape had said earlier that she would make sure that I got my detention and I guess that this was what he meant. Of course, judging by the look on his face, he probably felt like he was getting a worse punishment than I was.

"Was the staff room empty?" I asked bluntly.

"I don't believe that I checked," she smiled. "But I'm already here, why bother wasting more time?"

"Right," I muttered. "So what am I going to be doing this evening Professor Snape?"

Trying to hide his disgust with Umbridge, he finally turned to me as she took a seat behind the first table on the left side of the room.

"I suppose that you could do some cleaning around here," Snape sighed. "It is getting rather filthy in here…"

"Of course, you won't be able to use magic," Umbridge spoke up suddenly.

"I was getting to that," Snape said icily. "I do believe that it was I that gave her detention, so I do believe that it is my place to tell her the rules."

"I'm just making sure that Miss Potter understands the rules," Umbridge said. "It seems like if you don't spell it out for her, she feels as though she can do whatever she pleases."

Trying to hold back the retort that popped into my mind, I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands before turning back to Snape. With a fake smile plastered onto my face, I tried to block out all thoughts of wanting to hit Umbridge with ever ounce of energy that I have.

"Where are the cleaning materials?" I asked.

"In the supply closet," Snape said while pointing over to the door. "You can start by wiping down the tables."

While I walked over to the supply closet to grab a rag and some cleaning fluid, both Umbridge and Snape took out some papers so that they could grade them while I cleaned. Once I started with the first table that I came to, I noticed just how pleased Umbridge seemed to be with herself for giving me detention. I'm sure that she will be disappointed that I won't have bodily harm done to myself though.

When I finished wiping the desks down, I was made to wipe off the walls to get all of the spider webs off of them. The entire time I did so, I made sure that I didn't look too miserable because I didn't wish to please Umbridge by thinking that she had succeeded in ruining my day even though I continued to wish that I could use magic to get this done faster. I even managed to hide my disgust and horror when I found an enormous spider that would probably have made Ron hide in a hole forever.

After I had finished that disgusting task, I grabbed the broom from the supply closet and started to sweep up every ounce of dust and dirt from the floor. When I got around to where Umbridge was sitting, she gave me the biggest smile and I just looked at her in pure disgust as I swept up some grime from beside her.

"Whoops!" she said innocently when I turned around.

When I turned back to her, I saw that she had spilled an entire case of ink onto the floor and was staring directly at me and started to falsely apologize to me.

"I'm terribly sorry," she said with a smirk. "I suppose that you'll have to grab a mop as well."

I narrowed my eyes and walked back to the supply closet with my teeth gritted. Quickly, I grabbed the mop and a pail that I filled with water and walked back out to the room. Snape looked up at me and almost appeared to pity me. As much as I wanted to be mad at him for actually going through with the detention, I couldn't be angry because I knew that it was keeping me from another detention with Umbridge.

"I'll be off to the toilet," she smiled at me as she stepped walked out the room with the happiest look on her face.

I imagine that she was quite pleased with herself now that she could terrorize me. With an eye roll in her direction as she stepped out of the door, I smacked the wet mop on the floor and started to get all of the ink up.

"I'm sorry about this," Snape murmured from behind his desk. "I tried to get her to leave, but she started questioning me on how it shouldn't be a problem at all if she stayed."

"It's not your fault," I said angrily. "I hate that woman…she dumped that ink on purpose - I'm just saying…"

The ink seemed to have cleared up, so I grabbed the pail and mop and began to walk back to the closet. Just as I passed Snape's desk, he gave me the strangest look and suddenly stood up and snatched the mop from me and grabbed the hand that was holding it.

"What is this?" he demanded.

I looked from my scarred hand to him in horror. Because of my rush to get down to the room, I had forgotten to cover up the scar that was on my hand. He jerked my hand closer to him and read off what it said.

"_I must not tell lies_…" he said quietly and looked down at me in horror. "Emily - ?"

His entire face dropped and went pale as Umbridge came back in the room. She still had that same pleased look that she had before, but it changed as soon as she saw Snape looking at my hand. It went to confusion to what appeared to be a smug look.

"What seems to be the problem?" she asked darkly.

Snape, who was still staring at my bloody and scarred hand in horror, seemed to be lost for words. Knowing that she was expecting an answer, I quickly spoke up.

"Nothing at all Professor," I said as I jerked my hand from his grasp.

"Severus?" she said sweetly.

He looked from me to her in sudden realization and his face darkened immediately. After all, it shouldn't take much time to put the pieces together on who could have done this to me. My only concern at this point was how Snape was going to respond.

"You seem a bit flustered," Umbridge said with a smile. "Do we have a problem?"

"I don't know Dolores," Snape said with his eyes narrowed as he stepped closer to her. "It seems that we do."

"Oh really?" she asked with a dark smile. "And what is that?"

"Perhaps a disagreement on discipline," Snape said through gritted teeth.

"I don't see a problem at all," Umbridge said. "In fact, I believe I rectified one."

"Somehow I don't believe that I agree," Snape snarled. "In fact, I don't believe anyone else would agree either."

"What are you going to do Severus?" Umbridge asked threateningly. "Are you going to report me to Dumbledore? And what do you think he's going to do about it?"

"Fire your dumbass…" I muttered under my breath.

Snape went to open his mouth when the door to the room suddenly burst open. We all turned quickly to see what the interruption was - it was Draco Malfoy.

"Sir - oh, am I interrupting something?" Draco asked while looking from Umbridge to Snape and then to me.

"What is it Mr. Malfoy?" Umbridge said while throwing a smile on her face.

"Some third years are fighting in the corridors," he said.

"I'll be out there in a moment," Umbridge smiled at him.

Draco nodded and then looked at all of us strangely before departing from the room. With only an evil smirk towards us both, Umbridge left the room knowing that there wasn't anything that could be done to her.

"When did this happen?" Snape asked as soon as she shut the door behind her.

"It was during the first week of school," I said. "She had Harry and me do lines and…this is what happened."

"She's been doing this to Harry as well?" he asked under his breath. "How many other students has this been done to?"

"I don't know," I said. "I guess that she does this to everyone that gets detention."

Snape nodded and I noticed that his face was still just as pale as it had been before as he sat down in the chair behind his desk. And, for the first time since I had known him, he suddenly looked lost and confused.

"I'm going to have to report this," he said.

"No, you can't do that," I told him.

"And why not?" he asked me while raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Because you can't," I said. "He has enough on his mind already."

"He'll want to hear about this," Snape insisted.

"But I don't want you to tell him," I said. "It's not going to do anything. Besides, I don't want to give Umbridge the satisfaction of having us complain."

"This isn't a matter of pride Emily," Snape said while narrowing his eyes.

"You sound like Neville," I said in disbelief.

"And for the first time I have to say that Mr. Longbottom is right," Snape said.

"This isn't your concern," I said. "This is a matter between Harry, Umbridge, and me - it doesn't involve you."

"You think that it doesn't matter to me that you're hurt?" he asked darkly.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"No you aren't," he said.

"I am right now," I said. "It doesn't matter if Dumbledore knows about this anyway - there isn't anything he can do about it and Umbridge knows that. She works for Fudge and there is no chance that he would allow Dumbledore to change anything that she does."

Snape remained silent, thinking over what I had said. Even though I didn't want to believe it myself, I knew that there was nothing to be done about Dolores Umbridge. As long as she worked under the Ministry, there was no way that Fudge would allow Dumbledore to fire her under any circumstances. This wasn't something that she had looked over either - she knew that she had power here because of her position with Fudge.

"It's getting late," I said. "And I believe that I have finished up here - may I leave?"

"Just stay out of trouble with her," Snape sighed while putting his head in his hands. "You are dismissed…"

Without another word, I left the room to leave him to think. After a few minutes, I found myself passing by where Umbridge was yelling at the group of third years that were previously fighting. Draco was standing by looking very proud of himself and when he saw me, he couldn't hide a smug grin.

"Hey Potter," he said.

I rolled my eyes at him and continued to walk, but that didn't seem to give him the hint that he needed to stay away from me.

"Leave me alone, I don't want to talk," I sighed. "I'm just going to bed…"

"Is that an offer?" he asked flirtatiously.

I threw him a look and he started to laugh at me as he walked quicker to keep up with me.

"You know I'm only joking," he smiled. "So what was going on in Snape's room between him and Umbridge?"

"Does it really matter?" I asked.

"I was just wondering," he shrugged. "I figured that it isn't often that two teachers look like they want to murder each other."

"Yeah well, this is Umbridge we're talking about," I said.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked.

"You're joking, right?" I scoffed. "You actually like her?"

"She hasn't done anything to make me not like her," he said simply.

"Then you obviously don't see what she's doing," I said trying to walk faster.

"No, but I guess I could keep an eye out," he said.

"You do that," I said shortly.

We walked a good ways up the stairs before I actually started to wonder what he was doing. There couldn't be any reason that he was following me up to the Gryffindor Tower, so what was he doing here?

"Is there a reason that you're following me?" I asked suddenly.

"No, not really," he said. "I guess that it's just your charm - I simply can't stay away from you."

"You're hilarious," I said while pushing my hair out of my eyes, the scar on it burning from the rawness.

"I know," he smiled. "Whoa - what is that?"

"What is what?" I asked him.

"Your hand," he said. "What did you do to it?"

I quickly pulled my sleeve up to cover it up so he couldn't get a better look and shot a look at him begging him not to ask. But, as usual, he didn't get the hint.

"There isn't anything wrong with it," I said quickly. "I'm fine."

"It looked raw and bloody," he said with concern. "You should probably - "

"I said that I'm fine!" I snapped.

"Well damn, you don't have to get so defensive about it," Draco said. "I'm sorry that I asked…"

When I looked over at him, I was surprised to see that he looked genuinely upset that I had snapped on him. It was strange, because I rarely ever saw him like that and it made me feel terrible.

"Listen - I'm sorry," I said. "I just…don't want to talk about it…"

"It's…it's fine," he sighed. "I guess I should be going anyway - I need to be going to bed."

"Is that an invitation?" I smirked.

"Only if you want it to be babe," he winked and smiled. "I'll see you later."

"Goodnight," I waved.

Not much further down the corridor, I found myself standing outside of the portrait of the Fat Lady. Once I told her the password, I walked in to find the room nearly vacant aside from Hermione who was still sitting in an armchair with a needle in hand while she was fast asleep.

When I walked up next to her, I found that she had already made up several hats that I am to assume she was planning to lay around when she finished up for the night. I shook my head in disapproval before I began to wake her up.

"Hermione," I said as I poked her in the arm.

"W-what?" she asked sounding tired.

"You fell asleep," I told her. "You should probably go up to bed."

"Oh, yes," she said with a yawn. "I'll be up in a minute - I need to lay these out."

"You're mental," I laughed.

"So how did detention go?" she asked while picking up all of her materials.

"It was worse than I thought it was going to be," I said. "Umbridge was there to supervise."

"What?" she asked in disbelief. "She can't do that!"

"Well, that isn't what she said that she was there for," I said. "She claimed that she just wanted company while grading papers - but I knew better than that."

"So what happened?" she asked.

"Nothing really until the end," I said. "Snape saw what she did to my hand."

"What did he do?" she asked with wide eyes.

"He didn't blow up like I expected him to," I said. "I think he was too shocked to say much. He was angry, but he didn't get the chance to yell at her properly because Draco came in to complain about some third years fighting in the hallways."

"Well good, maybe he'll report her to Dumbledore," she said firmly.

"I asked him not to," I said.

"Why would you do something like that?" she asked incredulously.

"I'm not getting into this again," I sighed. "I'm going to bed…"

"Fine," she said stiffly. "Goodnight."

I walked up the staircase alone and fell into my bed as soon as I got into my dorms. It didn't take much time at all before I fell fast asleep.

* * *

The next day I was happy to know that I didn't have any school work to finish up because of the amount of time that I had spent on it the day before. Unlike Harry and Ron, I could actually have a free Sunday for the first time in a long time.

"You should help us with that essay for Potions," Ron said.

"You still haven't written that?" I asked in disbelief. "We were given that assignment a while ago."

"Well not all of us are geniuses with potions," Harry said.

"Please, could you at least help us with that?" Ron begged.

"Fine, but that's all the help that you're getting from me," I said.

However, I didn't stay true to my word because I ended up helping them with a load of their assignments because they both continued to beg me for help. But in the end, Hermione ended up dragging me away from them.

"They shouldn't need your help," Hermione insisted. "They said that they could do this by themselves."

"But - " Ron protested.

"It's your own fault," Hermione shrugged.

I wasn't too much happier with the arrangement that I was set up with because Hermione forced both Ginny and me to help her with knitting the hats for the elves. To be honest, I would rather be doing anything else. But I guess it didn't take too much effort because I had magic to help me move along.

"Oh, there you are," George said when he came into the room later that evening. "Come here, we have to show you something."

"What is it?" Hermione demanded.

"Keep your nose out of it," George said. "It isn't harming anyone."

"Fine, but if you get caught, then it's your own problem," she said.

"Now that that's settled," George said as he grabbed me by the arm. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" I asked as we walked out of the portrait door.

"I just wanted to show you something," he smiled as he took me by the hand and pulled me along.

I didn't ask anymore questions and soon enough, I found myself standing in the outside courtyard where I saw Fred and Lee waiting.

"It's about time," Fred said. "We've been waiting ages."

"Just show her," George said eagerly.

From Fred's pocket, he pulled out a giant fireworks case and I suddenly got anxious to see what it did. George had been telling me that they had been working on something for a while and I guess that they had just perfected it.

"Prepare to have your mind blown," Fred smiled.

He lit the end of the firework with his wand and suddenly we were all jumping back from it so that we wouldn't get hit with it. It only took a couple of seconds before the thing flew off into the air and exploded. And when it did, I was shocked by the image.

From only that one firework case came an enormous red dragon that had multicolored flames surrounding its body. As it moved around, a trail of red, orange, yellow, and white flames followed its path as it flew out into the partially lit sky. I stared off in amazement as the entire creation exploded and a large W was left where the dragon had once been.

"Wow," I said in surprise. "That was amazing!"

"We thought so too," Lee said with a smile.

"How did you even - ?" I started to ask.

"No time for questions, we need to move," George said as he pulled me along with the hand that he was holding.

"Why - ?" I asked.

"Oh, you know," Fred said as we began to race along the hallways. "Umbridge isn't exactly happy with us."

"You see, we've been testing these things out for a while," George said as we got closer to the Gryffindor Tower. "And we haven't been caught…yet…but she knows that it's us doing it."

"Must be the huge W at the end," I said with a laugh.

"That could be it," Fred said. "Or she might have heard us talking about all of the other ones in her class."

When we got back to the common room, Harry and Ron were still working on homework while Hermione was making more hats - Ginny was no longer with her. Hermione's dedication to those elves amazes me sometimes...even though she shouldn't be putting that much effort into something that they don't really want.

"Were you all just running?" Hermione asked when she saw us.

"What's your point?" Fred asked.

"Why were you running?" she asked dangerously.

"We like to stay in shape," George shrugged.

Hermione narrowed her eyes, but Lee and Fred quickly ran up the stairs to avoid any more conflict with Hermione. There was no doubt that there would be more questioning if they stuck around.

"Goodnight!" they called down.

"Goodnight," George said with a quick kiss. "Love you babe."

"OH MY GOD, I LOVE YOU TOO!" Fred yelled from the stairs.

"SHUT UP FRED!" George yelled as he chased after his brother.

Ron and Harry laughed while Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled. When she stood back up, I was surprised when she didn't ask me what they had run off to show me and went to looking over the boys homework and correcting it.

Suddenly, I heard something tapping on the window next to me and I turned to see a screech owl looking into the room. Somehow I felt like this particular bird look familiar.

"Ron - isn't that Hermes, Percy's owl?" Hermione asked when she saw me looking at it.

"Wow, it is," Ron said in amazement. "What is Percy writing to me for?"

I opened up the window and the owl flew in and landed on top of Ron's shoulder with a note attached to its leg. When Ron took the letter off of it, we all gathered around to read what his brother had to say.

_Dear Ron,_

_I have only just heard (from no less a person than the Minister for Magic himself, who has it from your new teacher, Professor Umbridge) that you have become a Hogwarts prefect._

_I was most pleasantly surprised when f heard this news and must firstly offer my congratulations. I must admit that I have always been afraid that you would take what we might call the 'Fred and George' route, rather than following in my footsteps, so you can imagine my feelings on hearing you have stopped flouting authority and have decided to shoulder some real responsibility._

_But I want to give you more than congratulations, Ron, I want to give you some advice, which is why I am sending this at night rather than by the usual morning post. Hopefully, you will be able 'o read this away from prying eyes and avoid awkward questions._

_From something the Minister let slip when telling me you are now a prefect, I gather that you are still seeing a lot of both Harry and Emily Potter. I must tell you, Ron, that nothing could put you in danger of losing your badge more than continued fraternisation with those two. Yes, I am sure you are surprised to hear this - no doubt you will say that both Potters have always been Dumbledore's favorites - but I feel bound to tell you that Dumbledore may not be in charge at Hogwarts much longer and the people who count have a very different - and probably more accurate - view of the Potter twins's behaviour. I shall say no more here, but if you look at the Daily Prophet tomorrow you will get a good idea of the way the wind is blowing - and see if you can spot yours truly!_

_Seriously, Ron, you do not want to be tarred with the same brush as the Potters, it could be very damaging to your future prospects, and I am talking here about life after school, too. As you must be aware, given that our father escorted him to court, Harry Potter had a disciplinary hearing this summer in front of the whole Wizengamot and he did not come out of it looking too good. He got off on a mere technicality, if you ask me, and many of the people I've spoken to remain convinced of his guilt. I know that they claim that his sister wasn't involved, but some of the Ministry officials, including myself, feel like Harry was only covering up for her so that they both didn't get in trouble._

_It may be that you are afraid to sever ties with those two - I know that they can be unbalanced and, for all I know, violent - but if you have any worries about this, or have spotted anything else in their behaviour that is troubling you, I urge you to speak to Dolores Umbridge, a truly delightful woman who I know will be only too happy to advise you._

_This leads me to my other bit of advice. As I have hinted above, Dumbledore's regime at Hogwarts may soon be over. Your loyalty, Ron, should be not to him, but to the school and the Ministry. I am very sorry to hear that, so far, Professor Umbridge is encountering very little co-operation from staff as she strives to make those necessary changes within Hogwarts that the Ministry so ardently desires (although she should find this easier from next week - again, see the Daily Prophet tomorrow!). I shall say only this - a student who shows himself willing to help Professor Umbridge now may be very well-placed for Head Boy ship in a couple of years!_

_I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticise our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore. (If you are writing to Mother at any point, you might tell her that a certain Sturgis Podmore, who is a great friend of Dumbledore's, has recently been sent to Azkaban for trespass at the Ministry. Perhaps that will open their eyes to the kind of petty criminals with whom they are currently rubbing shoulders.) I count myself very lucky to have escaped the stigma of association with such people - the Minister really could not be more gracious to me - and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents' beliefs and actions, either. I sincerely hope that, in time, they will realise how mistaken they were and I shall, of course, be ready to accept a full apology when that day comes._

_Please think over what I have said most carefully, particularly the bit about the Potter twins, and congratulations again on becoming prefect. _

_Your brother, Percy_

**(Author's Note: This letter was taken directly from the book and I only made small changes to make it compatible with the story. All rights to J.K. Rowling)**

"Well, I'm happy to see that we're on his good side," I said sarcastically.

"Hey, if it's for the best," Harry said in mock seriousness. "You don't have to speak to us - we are very dangerous.""Shut it," Ron said as he snatched the letter from Harry's hands. "Percy is such a prick..."

As he proceeded to rip the letter to shreds, I got to thinking about what Percy said about both Dumbledore and Umbridge. What did he mean that Dumbledore wasn't going to be in charge much longer? And what was that about the staff not participating with Umbridge? Percy said something about the Ministry wanting to make serious changes at Hogwarts to meet Ministry regulations - does that mean that Umbridge has only just started with changing our school? And what does that mean for everyone else?

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it. The next chapter should be up sometime this weekend I would guess. Any questions - comment? Leave them in a review!**

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	18. Umbridge Must Think She Owns The Place

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 18**

"Seriously, you shouldn't take anything Percy says to heart," Ron said as he threw his letter into the bin. "He's a complete idiot."

No one made a comment, but I knew it was true. I probably shouldn't take his letter seriously - or should I? It still worried me that he mentioned something about Dumbledore not working here much longer. Did the Ministry really have a say in who the headmaster is? I mean, they would have to have some sort of reason for firing him - and it would have to be a legitimate reason at that.

"Here you go," Hermione said suddenly as she handed Ron and Harry their essays. "Just rewrite them and they should be much better."

"Have I told you how great you are Hermione?" Ron asked with a smile.

"No, but I like the sound of it," she smiled.

Suddenly, Harry jumped up from his chair and everyone's eyes went wide as he slid over next to the fireplace. He was looking at it so intently that it made me laugh because I had absolutely no idea what had just come over him.

"Are you really that cold?" I laughed.

"It was Sirius," Harry said. "I just saw him in the fire."

"What?" I asked suddenly and jumped down next to the fire next to him.

I couldn't see what he was talking about and I was just about to ask him if he was sure that he had seen Sirius when I turned back to see his head floating in the fire. Hermione and Ron gasped behind us and quickly jumped up to kneel down behind where we were sitting. When Sirius saw us, a small smile went across his face.

"Hello," he said nonchalantly.

"What are you doing here?" I laughed.

"How did you know that we'd be here?" Harry asked at the same time.

"Well, I've been checking the room every hour to see if you were here," Sirius told us. "I was starting to think that you had all gone to bed."

"How did you manage that?" I asked. "No one saw you?"

"Well, I think that a couple of people might have seen me," Sirius said. "Luckily one of them was that Longbottom boy and he managed to get the other girl's attention away from me so I could leave."

"That's far too dangerous Sirius," Hermione scorned. "What if he hadn't been there - you would have been caught."

"Wait - Neville knows about Sirius?" Ron asked.

"I don't think that Emily has the ability to keep anything from him," Harry rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," I said over them. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to respond to the letter that Harry wrote," Sirius said. "And I figured that it would be much easier to actually talk to the two of you rather than send a coded letter."

"True," I nodded.

"You didn't tell us that you wrote a letter," Hermione said.

"Speaking of not telling people things," Sirius interjected. "Tonks has been bothering me about it for days."

"Tonks?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Well, I should have told you both a good while ago," he said. "But you didn't exactly know who she was at the time and I figured it would be better if you met her first."

"Tell us what?" Harry asked.

"Tonks is your godmother," Sirius said.

"...she is?" I asked.

"She was very young when you both were born, but Lily said that she felt Tonks would do a good job," Sirius said.

"Wow..." Harry said.

"Is that what you came here to tell us?" I asked.

"No, I told you that I wanted to respond to your letter," Sirius said. "Sorry - got a bit off track. So, your scars have been bothering you?"

"Yeah," we both said at once, gaining a look from both Hermione and Ron.

"Well, you mentioned that they had been hurting last year too," Sirius said. "And I would imagine that it would be much worse now that he's come back."

"What about that bit with Umbridge?" Harry asked. "Do you think that - "

"No, I don't think she's a Death Eater," Sirius said. "I've heard way too much about her and she just doesn't seem the type."

"She's cruel enough to be one..." I muttered.

"Either way, I seriously doubt that she is," Sirius said. "And I've heard that she's pretty cruel before - you should hear Lupin talking about her."

"Does he know her?" Harry asked.

"Well, no, but she hates anyone that isn't purely a wizard," Sirius said. "She drafted an anti-werewolf legislation recently and he hasn't been able to get a job because of it. So, needless to say, he doesn't exactly think very highly of her."

"That's terrible," Hermione said.

"Speaking of terrible things, how are her classes anyway?" Sirius asked.

"Dreadful - " I said.

"Worse than you can imagine," Harry said.

"She isn't letting us use magic - " I started.

"She's only letting us read out of this awful textbook - " Harry added.

"Which was probably written for first-years," I scoffed.

"It's always freaked me out when twins start speaking for each other..." Ron commented quietly.

"It doesn't really surprise me that she isn't letting you use magic," Sirius said while ignoring Ron's comment. "Apparently Fudge doesn't want you all trained in combat..."

"Combat?" I laughed. "That's a joke, right?"

"I wish it was," Sirius said. "Fudge hasn't been acting...reasonable since he feels that Dumbledore is challenging his authority. He's afraid of him, so naturally he's suspicious of everything he's doing - why do you think Umbridge is working there?"

"You don't happen to know anything about when Hagrid's coming back, do you Sirius?" Harry asked.

"I expect that he should have been back by now..." Sirius said under his breath. "But I suppose he's fine - Madam Maxine is with him and we haven't gotten anything to suggest that they've been hurt. I'm sure he's fine - Dumbledore doesn't seem to be too worried about anything, so I'm sure of it. Just don't go asking around about him though."

"Why not?" Ron asked.

"We just don't want to attract attention to the fact that he hasn't returned yet..." Sirius said. "Oh, I meant to ask you when your next Hogsmeade trip is."

"Why?" Hermione asked cautiously.

"I was thinking about - " he started.

"Please don't say what I think you're going to say," I said quietly.

"Oh come on Emily, we got away with it at Kings Cross," Sirius said.

"Didn't you see that article in the Prophet?" Harry asked. "Malfoy must have recognized you when he was there - it's too dangerous Sirius."

"Well I expected some fight with Emily about this, but Harry?" Sirius asked sounding disappointed. "I guess that you aren't the same man as your father was."

"Sirius - " Harry started.

"It's too risky and you know that it is," I said.

"And you sneaking out to aid me during your third year wasn't?" he retorted.

"Things are different now," Harry said. "Everyone is on edge and the risk isn't worth it."

"Whatever you say," Sirius said angrily. "I guess that I should be going anyway. It's probably too risky to stick around here anyway."

"Oh come on - " Harry started.

"Send me a letter if you don't think that it's too dangerous," he said shortly.

With a sudden flicker in the flames, Sirius' face suddenly disappeared and only a fire and a log sat in its place. I know that our godfather wasn't happy about what we had told him, but he was just going to have to deal with it. I would rather him be angry with us and safe than in a cell at Azkaban.

* * *

The next morning I sat in the Great Hall waiting in anticipation for Hermione's copy of the Daily Prophet. Since Percy had mentioned that something about Dumbledore's authority would be mentioned, I could hardly hide my anxiety. However, since I am the early riser that I am, I would have to wait even longer since, not only she, but most of the school hadn't even woken up yet.

"What are you so jumpy about?" Neville laughed as he sat down across from me.

"It's just something that Ron's brother said in a letter to him," I said quickly and quietly.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

After looking around to make sure that no one was listening to us, I quickly told him all about the letter that we had seen the night before. Just like us, he was shocked to hear about it.

"So what do you think is going to happen?" he asked. "They couldn't have fired Dumbledore - we would have heard about it before now."

"No, I think that they would have to have a serious reason to do that," I said. "They don't have any reason to fire him...at least I don't think they do. For all we know they could have made something up by now."

When Umbridge walked passed our table, both of us became quiet as we glared over at her. As usual, she had that same smile on her face that suggested that she was under the belief that she ran the place and we were all just pawns. Of course, we knew better than that. She glanced over at us for a moment and her smile got wider as she made her way over to the staff table.

"I hate her," I said.

"Don't we all?" Neville asked.

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, more students came piling into the Great Hall and I longed to see the owls flying into the room so that I could just see what was going on.

"You look like you're going to jump out of your skin," George said as he sat next to me.

"Yeah, well I might," I said.

Before I got the chance to explain, owls suddenly flew across the ceiling and we all looked up at them. When one flew over Hermione's head and dropped a rolled up piece of newspaper in front of her, I held my breath in anticipation.

I didn't even have to ask if anything was in it because she gasped as soon as she unrolled the paper. All of our eyes turned to her.

"What is it?" I asked quickly.

She laid the paper down so that we could all see what the front page had on it. I was mortified to see a gigantic picture of Dolores Umbridge with a huge title underneath it that read: MINISTRY SEEKS EDUCATIONAL REFORM - DOLORES UMBRIDGE APPOINTED HIGH INQUISITOR.

**(Author's Note: The following comes directly from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. All rights to J. K. Rowling.)**

_The Minister has been growing uneasy about goings-on at Hogwarts for some time," said Junior Assistant to the Minister, Percy Weasley. "He is now responding to concerns, voiced by anxious parents, who feel the school may be moving in a direction they do not approve of. This is not the first time in recent weeks that the Minister, Cornelius Fudge, has used new laws to effect improvements at the wizarding school. As recently as 30th August, Educational Decree Number Twenty-two was passed, to ensure that, in the event of the current Headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person._

"_That's how Dolores Umbridge came to be appointed to the teaching staff at Hogwarts," said Weasley last night. "Dumbledore couldn't find anyone so the Minister put in Umbridge, and of course, she's been an immediate successes, totally revolutionizing the teaching of Defense Against the Dark Arts and providing the Minister with on-the-ground feedback about what's really happening at Hogwarts._

_It is this last function that the Ministry has now formalized with the passing of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, which creates the new position of Hogwarts High Inquisitor._

_This is an exciting new phase in the Minister's plan to get to grips with what some are calling the falling standards at Hogwarts," said Weasley. "The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect her fellow educators and make sure that they are coming up to scratch. Professor Umbridge has been offered this position in addition to her own teaching post and we are delighted to say that she has accepted."_

_The Ministry's new moves have received enthusiastic support from parents of students at Hogwarts._

_"I feel much easier in my mind now that I know Dumbledore is being subjected to fair and objective evaluation," said Mr Lucius Malfoy, 41, speaking from his Wiltshire mansion last night. "Many of us with our children's best interests at heart have been concerned about some of Dumbledore's eccentric decisions in the last few years and are glad to know that the Ministry is keeping an eye on the situation."_

_Among those eccentric decisions are undoubtedly the controversial staff appointments previously described in this newspaper, which have included the employment of werewolf Remus Lupin, half-giant Rubeus Hagrid and delusional ex-Auror, "Mad-Eye" Moody._

_Rumours abound, of course, that Albus Dumbledore, once Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, is no longer up to the task of managing the prestigious school of Hogwarts._

_"I think the appointment of the Inquisitor is a first step towards ensuring that Hogwarts has a headmaster in whom we can all repose our confidence," said a Ministry insider last night._

_'Wizengamot elders Griselda Marchbanks and Tiberius Ogden have resigned in protest at the introduction of the post of Inquisitor to Hogwarts._

_"Hogwarts is a school, not an outpost of Cornelius Fudge's office," said Madam Marchbanks. "This is a further, disgusting attempt to discredit Albus Dumbledore."_

**(Author's Note: Again, that was all from the book - all rights to Rowling)**

When I finished reading the article, my jaw dropped in shock. So that explained the smug I-run-this-place look that was on Umbridge's face when she walked through here earlier this morning. I couldn't believe this - the Ministry was taking over the school and there isn't anything that we could do about it.

"What does it mean that she can inspect classes?" Ron asked. "How can that even be allowed?"

"None of this should be allowed," Harry said. "All because Fudge can't accept the facts."

"I don't know about you all, but I can't wait for McGonagall to be inspected," Ron said. "I can't wait to see Umbridge put in her place."

"And I know that Snape's got a bone to pick with her too," I said. "Her inspection of his class isn't going to be any more pleasant."

"I've noticed that she's been all over his case recently," George said. "Ever since she noticed that you two actually speak to each other."

"I guess that she wouldn't understand how a student could get along with a teacher," I said. "After all, I'm sure that she's never gotten along with anyone in her life."

"You must be talking about Umbridge," a cold voice came from behind me.

As I expected, it was Snape. He didn't look happy at all which lead me to believe that he had already gotten his hands on the Prophet.

"Looking forward to having your class inspected?" I asked with a smile.

"As much as I look forward to seeing your godfather again," Snape said.

"I can't believe that Fudge has taken it this far," I said.

"I can," Snape said simply. "He's terrified of everything that Dumbledore does, so he's just going to take over to make sure that he can't actually do anything."

"I just wish that he wouldn't have picked her as the teacher," I said in disgust as I looked up at her sitting at the staff table. "I would have rather had a dementor teaching us."

"Funny, I think I heard a similar complaint from Gryffindor's Head of House..." Snape said as he eyed Professor McGonagall.

"McGonagall is complaining too?" I laughed.

"You think she's the only one?" he asked. "Well, I probably shouldn't stick around - Umbridge will probably fire me if I do - I'll see you all in class..."

Much to my amazement, I noticed that everyone else around me was silently listening to the conversation that we had just had. Usually they just continued talking about anything so they wouldn't have to listen to his voice.

"It's still creepy..." George said.

"What is?" I asked.

"That you speak to him like he's a normal person," he said.

"I couldn't agree more," Harry added.

Much to my delight, it was a good while before I would have to actually see one of these inspections. I didn't see her when I was in History of Magic later that day - not that I would have anyway because I was far too busy inspecting the back of my eyelids - nor did I see her in our double Potions class where we got our moonstone essay back.

I got a small smirk from Snape as he handed me my essay that had a large 'O' on the top of it. Unfortunately, not many others got the same luck - not even Hermione who got an 'A' on hers.

"How did you get a perfect score?" Hermione asked in a high voice.

"I don't know Hermione," I said with a shrug. "I guess I just really sounded convincing."

Hermione seemed to be slightly upset that she didn't get the highest markings, but it's probably the only class that she did that in as I'm sure she'll have a perfect score for the actual exam.

"What did you get Harry?" I asked him.

"Doesn't matter..." he mumbled as he stuffed his essay into his bag nearby.

"I got a Poor," Ron said. "Guess that I couldn't expect more than that...oh look - Emily got a perfect score, what a shock."

Snape glared at Ron as he handed over Neville's essay which also received a 'P' for poor. After he left, Neville just shrugged in defeat.

"Well, it's something to work off of," Hermione said sympathetically.

When Snape stepped up in front of the classroom, everyone became as quiet as they usually did. It didn't take anyone long to determine that he wasn't happy with the grades that had been given out.

"There was only one perfect score that I handed out today and I am ashamed to say that it wasn't a Slytherin that got that," Snape said miserably. "If this had really been the OWL, most of you would have failed it terribly - I will expect better on your essays from now on."

"Who got the perfect score?" Draco demanded.

"Take a wild guess," Snape muttered.

Draco shot a look over at Hermione and Snape rolled his eyes as most everyone followed suit in assuming that it was her that had made the perfect score. To be honest, I couldn't really blame them - she is really smart and I wouldn't put it passed her to get an Outstanding on every other essay that she hands in. In all fairness, I know that she wasn't pleased with her essay after she had written it because she said that she was worried about another assignment at the time.

"It wasn't Granger - it was Potter," Snape said. "And I don't mean the boy. You all should follow her example and actually put forth an effort with these assignments."

"Oh come on," Draco complained. "The girl reads the textbook in her free time - how is anyone supposed to compete with that?"

"Wow, I actually agree with him," Ron muttered.

"Shut it," I said.

"That isn't my problem Mr. Malfoy," Snape said.

When we were released from class, we went right to the Great Hall for lunch where we found that Fred and George had already seen one of Umbridge's inspections just before lunch.

"What did she do?" I asked.

"Nothing really," Fred shrugged. "She just sat there taking notes."

"But I don't think that she has that much of a problem with Flitwick anyway," George said. "He's always had people passing his class, so there shouldn't have been any issues to start with. I can't say that it's going to be the same with everyone."

"Well, I just hope that she isn't there to inspect Trelawney in our next class," I said. "I just don't want to be present when that happens."

"She's going to be fired for sure," Ron said.

"If she isn't a bad teacher, then I don't know what is," Harry said.

"Either way, I wouldn't want her to be fired because of Umbridge," I said.

"True..." Ron said.

Unfortunately, I had spoken too soon. When we stepped into the Divination classroom after class, I saw Umbridge in her bright pink cardigan and bow sitting in the corner of the room. Professor Trelawney was standing in another corner looking terrified and shaky because of her appearance. Now I understood that we weren't the only one thinking that her job was in jeopardy.

"Good afternoon class," Trelawney said. "Today we are going to continue studying our dreams."

Neville and I turned to one another and grimaced. As much as we hated this class, we knew that we were going to have to pretend to love it if there was any chance of sparing her job. Of course, that was going to be very difficult considering we both always thought of the class as a joke.

"So...did you have any dreams recently?" I asked Neville.

"Er...there was one about..." he said trying to think of one. "Oh! There was one that I had about flying on a broomstick. I kept falling off like I did before and everyone kept laughing."

"Well that's miserable," I said.

"What about you?" he asked trying to change the subject.

"Well...there was one about..." I said, trying to think of another one besides the nightmares that I had been having.

"Oh no, here comes Umbridge," Neville whispered nervously. "Make one up quickly!"

I started to scribble a made-up one down in my journal just as Umbridge stopped at our table with her notepad in hand.

"Hello Mr. Longbottom - Miss Potter," she said in greeting, though I noted that she seemed to say my name like it was some sort of disease.

"Hello..." we said awkwardly.

"I just wanted to see what this Dream journal was," she said. "May I ask what all is in yours Mr. Longbottom?"

"Er...well, I wrote down most of the dreams that I've had recently in here and I hope to interpret what they mean with the help of this book here," Neville said nervously.

"I see, so you didn't take the time to do this yourself?" she asked. "Why is it that you waited until class if you believe this is so important?"

"We're supposed to work in pairs," Neville said. "That way we can get a clearer view along with a third party perspective."

"I see..." she said while making a note on her clipboard.

"So...what is it that you do in here?" she asked the both of us. "Do you find this class as important as others - what about Professor Trelawney, do you think she is teaching you well?"

"I find this class very important because it helps me to see the bigger picture," I lied through my teeth. "And I think that Professor Trelawney is a very good educator - it's great to have someone that is actually a Seer to teach us."

"Is that so?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, you of all people should know that I don't tell lies," I said icily as I put my right hand in her view.

Umbridge narrowed her eyes and made a note on her clipboard. Some part of me wanted to snatch it out of her hands to see what she had written while another part wanted to smash her head in with it.

"And Mr. Longbottom?" she asked.

If I ever wished that Neville was a good liar, it was now. I just hope all of the time that he spent around me was going to pay off now.

"I think that this class is important," he said convincingly. "It's really interesting to be able to interpret what most people just overlook and I think that Professor Trelawney is doing really well with us."

If I didn't have any self control, I think my jaw would have dropped. Not only had Neville just lied to Umbridge while making it sound convincing, but he also did that without stuttering once. It was a proud moment for me.

"Thank you," she said with a false smile as she scribbled some more down on her clipboard.

"Now, may I ask you to show me how you interpret your dreams Mr. Longbottom?" she asked. "I am so fascinated to know."

It was ironic because she looked like she could honestly care less how this was done, sort of like I did on a regular day. But this time, I was determined that we would do everything we could to show that this was a good class. I just hoped that she couldn't see through our act...

"Er...what about a dream that we already interpreted?" he suggested nervously.

"Fine," she said while waiting for him to flip back to one in his journal.

"Well, there was one here that I had that involved me getting hit by a load of Remembralls," Neville said. "I was standing in the middle of a field and a whole heap of them continued to hit me as I ran from them."

Strangely enough, I remembered this one. Of course, he hadn't actually had that dream and I had helped make it up.

"And that interpreted to...?" Umbridge pushed on.

"Well, it helped me realize that I had forgotten a whole lot of homework that I had lying around," Neville said.

"Right..." Umbridge said as she made another note. "Well thank you for that..."

She passed by us and went over to the corner that she had been standing in before so that she could make a few more notes before she stood up to address Professor Trelawney directly.

"So, how long have you worked here exactly?" she asked.

Everyone in the room fell silent as they looked in between the two woman that were standing in the front of the room.

"Sixteen years," Trelawney answered nervously.

"Right..." she said while making a note. "And you are the great-great-granddaughter of the Seer Cassandra Trelawney."

"I am," she said proudly. "As you may know, this gift often skips three generations."

"Of course," Umbridge nodded. "So could you make a prediction for me?"

Everyone's eyes grew wide as they glanced from one woman to the other while holding their breath. Personally, I had seen her make a real prediction while I had been here, but it was a very rare thing. It was common knowledge to everyone that she was sort of a fraud.

"I cannot make a prediction on command," she said nervously. "That's n-not how the Inner Eye works..."

"What a shame..." Umbridge said coldly as she wrote something down again.

"W-wait!" Trelawney said fearfully. "I d-do see something for you. Oh, it's terrible - you are in g-grave danger!"

"Of course," Umbridge said. "Excellent..."

By the look on her face, everyone knew that she didn't really think that it was 'excellent.' After that, she continued what she had been doing before as she walked around the classroom to do individual inspections of the students.

"This is awful," Neville said. "Umbridge isn't even going to give her a chance."

I thought that there might be some hope until later in the period when Umbridge began to loudly announce predictions of Harry's death while Umbridge stood only inches away from her.

She was practically asking to be fired and there wasn't anything anyone could do to stop her.

* * *

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	19. Dolores is Causing Drama

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Author's Note: It was pointed out that I made a mistake at the end of the last chapter when I wrote that Umbridge made a prediction rather than Trelawney...sorry about that...**

**Chapter 19**

When we walked into Umbridge's classroom after we all left Divination, the horrid woman in pink was already waiting there for us with the happiest smile on her face. Of course, I would assume that was because she had just spent the day destroying her fellow worker's lives. Making sure not to make eye contact with her, I quickly found my seat next to Neville and waited for class to begin.

"Good evening everyone," she said cheerfully as she walked up to the front of the classroom. "Wands away!"

Looking annoyed, the few people that had even bothered to have their wands out quickly put them away as everyone else reached for their textbooks knowing what was coming next. Why couldn't someone come to examine her classroom and tell her how terrible she was?

"Today you will all be reading the second chapter of your textbook," she announced as if we didn't already know. "There won't be any need to talk."

I rolled my eyes and flipped my book open to the chapter titled Common Defensive Theories and their Derivation. Neville caught my eye and shook his head to show how much he detested what we were doing. He wasn't the only one. Luckily enough, Hermione was raising her hand already and she seemed to have most of the classroom's attention already.

"May I help you Miss Granger?" Umbridge asked in a falsely sweet voice.

"I've already read chapter two," Hermione said.

"Then you may continue to the following chapter," she said quickly.

"I've actually already read the entire book," Hermione announced.

Umbridge raised her eyebrow at her and took a moment before she spoke up. As simple as this was to believe for everyone else, it must have come as a shock that Hermione had already finished work ahead of time.

"So if I were to quiz you on it - ?" Umbridge started.

"I would be able to answer any question that you wish to ask," Hermione stated simply.

"Then what is Slinkhard's opinion of counter-jinxes?" she asked.

As expected, Hermione answered as though she was reading directly from the textbook itself. Although I admired that she could do this, I also had to wonder where she found the time to take in all of this information. I guess that it had to do with the fact that she hardly ever did anything aside from studying.

"He believes that they are improperly named," Hermione answered. "Slinkhard thinks that they are only referred to as 'counter-jinxes' to make them sound more acceptable."

"Correct," Umbridge said.

"How does she do that?" Neville whispered to me.

"I ask myself that everyday," I said under my breath.

"But I don't agree with him," Hermione said quickly. "Counter-jinxes can be very useful for defending oneself and I don't think that he recognizes that."

"I don't believe anyone asked what your opinion was Miss Granger," Umbridge said icily. "Five points from Gryffindor."

My jaw dropped. This woman was psychotic - she just changed her moods like she was flipping a switch and I personally thought that she was being harsh by punishing Hermione for something as simple as stating her opinion.

"What?" Harry burst out. "What for - she didn't do anything wrong!"

"That's for me to decide Mr. Potter," Umbridge said as she narrowed her eyes. "Unlike your other teachers for this subject, I do not allow pointless interruptions. I will not have students walk over me like your previous instructors - with the exception of Professor Quirrell perhaps - "

"Yeah, he was quite the bloke, wasn't he?" I scoffed. "I'm sure the two of you got along really well."

"Especially considering he had Voldemort growing out of the back of his head," Harry added coldly.

"Detention!" Umbridge shouted. "I think the two of you need another week to teach you something."

"We're only stating the truth - isn't that what you asked of us?" I snarled.

"Emily - stop!" Neville said quickly under his breath.

My blood felt like it was boiling as she smiled wickedly at me. Never before in my life have I wanted to hurt a person as much as I did right now. Everything I had in me told me to attack her like I wanted to, but subconsciously I knew that it wouldn't be in my best interest for the long run on things.

...

Just when I thought that the scar on my hand would have any hope of healing, it was bleeding again. Of course, this was only the result of the first day of detention with Umbridge, so I already expected that it would get worse than it looked now. For the time being, I kept the bandage on my hand to make sure that no one would catch sight of it.

Unfortunately, this act didn't go unnoticed by the people who already knew. When I went down to breakfast early on Tuesday morning, Snape was walking into the Great Hall followed closely by Draco whom I was assuming was taking his chance to brown-nose his teacher into giving him better grades in class like he usually did. When I passed them while coming into the entrance of the Great Hall, it was Draco that saw me first.

"What's that thing doing around your hand Emily?" he asked when he saw me.

Snape's eye went quickly down to the bandage and his eyes narrowed.

"Don't worry about it Draco," I said as I neared where I usually sat in the Great Hall.

"The word is that you received another detention from Dolores, Miss Potter," Snape said. "At least, that's what she's been talking about whenever I'm around her."

"You got detention again?" Draco asked. "Didn't you just get out of one with her?"

"Yes, she did," Snape said angrily. "And I do believe that she got out of one with me as well. I would have thought she would have learned by now that she needs to hold her tongue around Umbridge."

"Maybe she should consider the same," I said. "She doesn't know when to shut her mouth either."

"This is only doing more harm to you Emily," Snape said. "You need to stop this nonsense."

"And let her run her mouth about how my brother and I are liars?" I scoffed. "I don't think so."

"What does it matter what she says to you?" Snape asked. "Don't you read about the same things in the paper all of the time? I don't see you marching up to the editor to backtalk him."

"This isn't just her talking," I said through gritted teeth. "She stands for everything that the Ministry does and someone has to make a stand - why not us?"

"Because you're going to get hurt - mentally and physically," Snape snarled. "Everything that you do gets back to the Minister himself - don't you realize that you're only making this worse for yourself?"

"I don't care," I snarled back. "I just want to make it clear that I'm not giving up because of their useless taunts about us. I'm not just going to sit back and let them win."

"You're too proud for your own good," Snape said in disbelief. "This isn't just hurting you Emily - this is hurting the people that care about you and all of the people that are standing up for you."

"Well maybe - " I started when suddenly someone else was standing next to me.

"What is going on?" Harry asked.

He had virtually appeared out of nowhere and was looking from Snape to me and then to Draco who seemed completely confused. To be honest, I nearly forgot that he was standing there. Snape glared back at Harry and, without a word, walked away from all of us.

"What do you want Malfoy?" Harry snarled.

"Harry don't - " I started.

"Nothing Potter, I was just leaving," Draco said.

He whipped around and walked over to the almost empty looking Slytherin table. When I turned back to Harry, he looked angry and confused all at once.

"What was that about?" he asked as we sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"Our detention with Umbridge," I said.

"What?" Harry asked in disbelief. "How is that either of their business?"

"Well, it wasn't really Draco," I said.

"You know, your the only one that I know that calls him by first name," Harry said offhand. "But how is it Snape's matter anyway?"

"He knows about what she's making us do," I told him. "And he thinks we're being dumb by not keeping our mouths shut."

"Well someone has to show her," Harry said.

"That's what I'm saying," I said.

Later that day, we had Transfiguration with McGonagall. When we walked into the room, we were all shocked to see Umbridge sitting in the corner of the room - this was going to be bad. It was common knowledge through the school that these two women loathed the sight of one another and you could nearly feel the tension in the air as soon as you walked in.

"This is going to be good," Ron smiled. "I can't wait to see McGonagall go off on her."

"Maybe then she'll stop taking points from me for doing the same thing," Harry grumbled as he took his seat.

Harry has already told me that just after I left breakfast to spend some time with George that Angelina had gone off on him for getting detention again. McGonagall had overheard this and decided to take points from Gryffindor because she felt that he wasn't learning his lesson from detention. Sometimes I wish that she was like Snape and refused to take points from her own house, but we weren't given such luck. The only thing I was thankful for was that I hadn't been there for her to take more points from us.

"Alright, enough talking," McGonagall said as the bell rang to start class. "Mr. Finnagan, I ask that you pass back the graded homework while Miss Brown may pass out a mouse to everyone."

They both did as they were told and it was obvious to everyone that Lavender detested the thought of having to touch the mice in the first place. I might have had some sympathy toward her if she hadn't been so horrible to me. Once everything had been passed out - I had managed to receive an Acceptable on my homework - McGonagall started class up.

"Now, today we shall begin using the Vanishing Charm on mice," she said. "As you have been doing better with snails, I decided that it was best to start - "

"Hem, hem."

I glanced over to the corner of the room where Umbridge was sitting and she was trying to get McGonagall's attention. However, much to my own amusement, our Transfiguration teacher acted as though she hadn't heard anything at all.

" - on something more advanced," McGonagall said while raising her voice an octave. "Although some of you weren't as successful as others, I believe you all understand - "

"Hem, hem."

"May I help you Dolores?" McGonagall snapped.

Everyone's attention turned to the woman in the pink cardigan who seemed to be slightly baffled at McGonagall's tone. From where I was sitting, Neville and I were doing everything in our power not to laugh at the scene in front of us. And by the looks of it, we weren't the only ones - Ron looked like his sides were about to burst.

"I was wondering if you got my letter regarding your inspection - " she started.

"Don't you think that I would have sent you out by now if I hadn't?" McGonagall scoffed shortly. "Now, as I was saying - today we will be vanishing mice. This practice may come more difficult to some of you - "

"Hem, hem."

"Do you honestly expect me to get anything done if you continue to interrupt me?" McGonagall asked in disbelief.

If Umbridge had looked surprised before, nothing compared to how she looked now. She looked like she wanted to say something back, but something overcame her and she just returned to writing notes down on that clipboard of hers.

Once we began vanishing our mice, I took note that Umbridge didn't seem to follow McGonagall around like she had done with Trelawney.

"You would think she was afraid of her," I laughed quietly.

"What?" Neville asked when he looked up from his mouse that didn't seem to want to vanish.

"Umbridge," I said. "She seems to be treating McGonagall differently than she did Trelawney."

"That's because McGonagall wouldn't put up with it," Neville said. "I'll give Umbridge that much - she has some common sense."

"I don't know about all that," I scoffed.

By the time class ended, the two women hadn't spoken to one another outside of the last few questions that Umbridge had for her inspection that she gave just as the bell rang for class to end. As we were leaving, Ron seemed to be more disappointed that McGonagall hadn't maimed Umbridge than anything else.

"All I wanted was one good hit," Ron complained. "I just want to see one person knock her upside the head before the year is up and it would have been great for it to have been McGonagall."

"You're mental," I laughed.

"Emily!" someone called a few feet away.

When I turned, I saw George walking over to me closely followed by Fred. We stopped off to the side of the hallway where George kissed me and shoved Fred off to the side when he went to kiss me as well. Everyone started to laugh as Fred shrugged his shoulders and ran off to his next class.

"We're going to go to class," Hermione laughed as the rest of the group followed her.

"See you later," Neville waved to us.

"So is Umbridge still alive?" George asked.

"Yeah, McGonagall didn't kill her...unfortunately," I laughed. "I think Umbridge is scared of her."

"I don't blame her - I am as well," he said seriously. "I wouldn't want to make that woman mad."

"You've got to be joking," I said. "She's constantly angry with you."

"Yeah, well..." he shrugged as he grabbed onto my hand. "You've still got that bloody thing on your hand? You must have really messed it up."

"Er...yeah..." I said nervously as I took my hand back from him.

"Let me take a look at it," he said making a grab for it.

"It's fine George," I said while pulling my hand back. "It's just a cut - it's nearly healed."

He looked at me strangely and grabbed my hand again so that he could move the bandage aside. Before I could stop him, he saw the words that were carved into my skin and his eyes grew wider than I had ever seen them before. When he looked up at me, I could see the horror in his eyes.

"W-what is this Emily?" he asked in a hollow voice .

"It's just a cut," I said almost inaudibly. "It'll be fine."

I took my hand back from him and wrapped the bandage tightly over my hands so that it was covered again, all while not making any sort of eye contact.

"Who did this to you?" George asked in almost a whisper.

"It doesn't matter now," I said.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" he asked in disbelief. "Look at your hand - "

"I've seen it George," I said quickly. "I know that it's there, but it doesn't matter anymore - it's already been done."

He was silent, I don't think that he knew what to say. After a moment, his face turned from shock to anger.

"It was her, wasn't it?" he said through gritted teeth. "Umbridge did this to you."

I didn't respond, but I don't think he needed me to. He knew that it had to have been her, no one else would have made me do this to myself.

"This isn't over," he said angrily. "She doesn't know what she's started."

"George - " I started.

"I need to go," he said shortly.

With that, he went off into the thinning crowd of people around us and was soon out of sight. I wasn't sure what he intended to do, but I knew that it wasn't going to be good. For a moment, I almost wanted to cry. The look on George's face could have killed me. He looked scared and sad all at once. It scared me to see him like that. George is always such a happy person and I had only seen him differently on rare occasions. This was the worst.

Suddenly the chatter in the halls died away and I was brought back to reality. When I looked around, the corridor was nearly vacant aside from a few people who were moving quickly to get to class. Finally, I brought myself to get moving out to m next class which was Care of Magical Creatures with Professor Grubbly-Plank.

When I finally made it to the edge of the forest where the rest of the class already was, I found that Umbridge was there as well. Great, to think I was going to have a break from her until detention tonight...

Professor Grubbly-Plank had already started class and Umbridge was standing nearby writing notes happily on her clipboard as the teacher droned on about some new creature that I didn't even bother looking at.

"Where were you?" Hermione asked without looking at me. "You're late."

"Are you all right?" Harry asked.

"I'm fine," I said stiffly.

"What did he say to you?" Harry asked defensively.

"No, it's fine," I murmured. "He...saw my hand..."

"Oh," Harry said. "What did he do?"

"Well...he isn't exactly happy about it," I said quietly. "He said that she doesn't know what she's started..."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," I shrugged.

"Excuse me, is there a question in the back?" Grubbly-Plank asked.

"No ma'am," Harry said.

"Thank you," she said. "Now, as I was saying..."

She continued her lesson and I turned to see Umbridge eyeing me suspiciously. She wrote something quickly on her clipboard and then started walking around to speak to students about the class. I guess we weren't in McGonagall's anymore...

"I've heard that there was one student attacked in class at one point," Umbridge said a little while after Grubbly-Plank finished her lesson. "Is this true?"

"That was me," Draco held up his hand looking as though he had just won a grand prize. "I was kicked by a hippogriff - it was awful."

"Wow, a hippogriff?" Umbridge asked in disbelief. "That is awful - and I presume that this was under Hagrid's watch?"

"Yes, it was," Draco said with a smirk.

"Maybe if he would have listened to the instructions, that wouldn't have happened," Harry said too loudly.

"That will be another night of detention for you Mr. Potter," she said irritably as she made another note on her clipboard.

Draco couldn't have looked more pleased at the moment unless he had been told that Hagrid had been fired and Harry had been banned from the school. I made a mental note to hit him upside the head the next time I got the chance.

When we left the class for dinner, Umbridge walked by and gave us a big smirk as she passed us by.

"I shall see the two of you shortly," she said.

"Looking forward to it..." I muttered sarcastically.

When we went into the Great Hall, I didn't see George or Fred anywhere around. Granted, it was a bit early, but George had been coming down to eat with me early since I had been getting detention.

"Why are you so jumpy?" Neville asked me as finished glancing around the room one more time.

"Where is he?" I asked nervously.

"Who - George?" he asked.

"Yeah..." I said.

"Maybe he's just a bit late," Neville suggested.

"No, he was angry when I saw him last," I said. "And I know that he's planning to do something..."

He never showed up to dinner before I had to leave for Umbridge's office for detention. When we got there, she was her usual cheerful self. Part of me wondered if she actually enjoyed watching people in pain.

"Why hello," she smiled. "How are you today?"

"Oh, we're just fantastic," I muttered. "I love coming to detention!"

"No need for a smart-mouth Miss Potter," she said. "Unless of course you would like an extra day like your brother here."

"No, I think that I'm fine as it is," I said angrily as I took a seat and grabbed onto the pen that was set out for me.

By the end of the night, both of our hands were heavily bleeding and sore. I wanted to put my bandage back around it to hide it from sight, but the feeling of the fabric on my skin made me want to scream in pain.

"It's nearly over..." Harry said to me.

"No it's not..." I said. "This is only the beginning of Dolores Umbridge..."

"I had a feeling you would say that..." Harry said as he attempted to wipe some of the blood off his hand. "Just...do me a favor and try not to get anymore detention..."

"Yeah, you're one to tell me not to do that," I muttered. "You have more than I do at the moment."

"Yeah, I know..." he said. "I just...don't like seeing you get hurt..."

"I know what you mean..." I sighed. "But I'll try to stay out of trouble...no promises though..."

"Same here..." he said with a small chuckle.

When we stepped through the portrait, Ron and Hermione were sitting there waiting for us. In front of Hermione, I saw a large bowl sitting on a table.

"Put your hands in this," she said. "It should help with the pain."

"Thanks," I said with a weak smile.

"You're the best Hermione," Harry said.

When I put my bleeding hands in the yellowish liquid, relief flushed over them and I couldn't feel the pain anymore.

"Wow, this stuff is great," Harry said.

"It is..." I said. "Have you seen your brother Ron?"

"I saw him in here when we came up, but he left with Fred shortly afterwards," he said.

"Did he say anything...?" I asked without looking up from my hands.

"No..." he said. "But he still seems angry."

"Oh," I said. "Well thanks...I think I'm going to go off to bed now. Goodnight."

"Try not to worry about George," Ron said. "I'm sure he'll be back to himself by tomorrow. Besides, he normally doesn't get in too much trouble anyways."

"Right," I nodded. "I'm sure it'll be fine..."

But I knew that it wouldn't. Whatever George was planning with his brother was going to be awful - the loom on his face when he saw my hand told me that much. I don't know what he was planning, but whatever it was wasn't going to be forgotten by Dolores Umbridge very soon.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! Sorry if there were any errors - I had to type the majority of this on my iPod because my family is constantly hogging the computer for themselves. Anyway, the next chapter should be up sometime around Friday or Saturday.**

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	20. Everyone is Going Mental

**Disclaimer: I own Harry Potter - oh wait, no I don't.**

**Chapter 20**

When I woke up the next morning, I went straight to the common room and sat there refusing to move until I saw George. My hand was aching again because the relief from that concoction that Hermione had made had worn off through the night. When I went to put a bandage around it, it started to bleed more and ended up seeping through the fabric making it look even worse than before. Harry joined me not too much later than I had woken up with the same reasoning for not being able to sleep well.

"You should have heard the nonsense that Hermione had come up with," Harry said as I had began to wrap his hand.

"What was she saying?" I asked as he grimaced in pain at the touch of the fabric.

"She thinks we should teach a class," he said as he winced. "A Defense Against the Dark Arts class."

"What?" I said with a short laugh. "Has she gone mad?"

"That's what I was thinking," Harry said. "She was saying that we need a proper teacher to tell us how to defend ourselves since Umbridge isn't letting us use magic."

"And she thinks that we should teach them?" I asked as I finished wrapping his hand.

"She feels that the two of us are more experienced with defending ourselves," he rolled his eyes. "I tried to tell her that it was mostly dumb luck, but she doesn't want to hear about it."

"So what did you tell her?" I asked.

"I didn't say that we were going to do it," he told me. "But I didn't say that we weren't either...I don't know...it just seems a bit odd."

"I think if we're going to go through with it, you should do the teaching," I said. "You've always done better in that class than I have."

"Not by much," he said defensively. "And you couldn't leave me to teach them alone - it's either we both teach them or nothing."

"Fine, if we decide to go through with it, I suppose that I could help you," I sighed.

"I'm sure that Hermione is going beg you before the day is over," he said. "What are you doing in here anyway?"

"I wanted to catch George before breakfast," I told him. "I figured it would be difficult to escape me if I was waiting for him at the door."

"Sneaky," he said. "Is he really that mad?"

"That's how it seemed when I saw him last," I said. "He seemed a bit upset and shocked too."

"I wouldn't expect him to act any differently," he shrugged. "I'm sure he'll calm down soon enough."

"I hope so..." I sighed.

When Ron and Hermione came down into the common room, Harry said that he was going to go on down for breakfast. Hermione seemed like she wanted to say something - probably about the whole teaching situation - but Ron dragged her along so that she couldn't bother me. I would have to thank him later for that...

Finally, just when I thought he would never come into the room, he walked down looked tired with Fred following closely behind him looking the same as his brother. When they saw me, they didn't seemed to be all that shocked.

"Have you been avoiding me?" I asked as I crossed my arms.

"Not necessarily," George shrugged.

"We've been avoiding everyone," Fred said with a cheeky smile.

Although Fred didn't seem to be too angry, I was having trouble reading George. He still seemed tense, but not nearly as hostile as he had been in the corridor the day before. A part of me wanted to ask them what they had been up to, but I knew that there wasn't a chance that they were going to let me know.

"I see your hand has gotten worse," George said with narrowed eyes at my blood-stained bandage.

"Well I did have detention last night," I said without taking my eyes off of him. "So I would imagine that it would have gotten worse."

For a moment, everything in the room seemed to go to a standstill. I don't think that George really knew what to say - that or he didn't want me to know what he was thinking. Something told me that it was more than likely the latter one.

"How about we go and get some breakfast," Fred said with an awkward grin as he clapped his hands together.

"That sounds good," I said as I stood up from my seat.

We walked down to the Great Hall in silence. Fred walked in between the two of us and continued to awkwardly glance from one of us to the other as though we were about to break out into some sort of bloody battle to the death. Of course, I wasn't exactly angry with George, but I don't know if he had the same feeling with me at the moment. I was a bit angry that he had been avoiding me though.

"I hope they're serving bacon," Fred said in attempt to break the silence.

"They always serve bacon Fred," George said bluntly.

"You should never take bacon for granted Georgey," Fred smiled.

"If you're angry with me why won't you just say it?" I asked suddenly.

"I'm not angry with you," George said. "I'm upset that you didn't tell me - did you not trust me to know?"

"Eggs too, I could go for them as well," Fred said as if he wasn't listening to us at all.

"I was afraid of how you would react," I said honestly. "I thought you would overreact and I was right!"

"I am not overreacting - how would you feel if the roles were reversed and it was me that was getting cut up by some insensitive bitch?" he asked.

"I guess I can see your point, but you have to understand - " I started.

"Understand what?" he asked. "It seems pretty clear what is going on - I read what was on your hands."

"Which is my point," I said. "We're trying to make a stand against the people like her - the ones that think we are lying."

"And at the price of your health - are you mental?" he asked in disbelief. "I thought you were smarter than that Emily."

"I wonder where the house-elves get their bacon," Fred said as we got nearer to the Great Hall. "It's nothing like the kind that mum makes at home - don't tell her that though."

"See - you don't understand what I am saying!" I said. "Which is why I wouldn't tell you - you're overreacting over something you don't understand!"

"I know that you're trying to prove something Emily - but you aren't doing in the right way," George said. "You should never put your health at risk - what could that possibly do?"

"Prove that we won't stop what we are doing no matter what they do to us," I said.

"Maybe some waffles - " Fred started.

"Shut up Fred," George said. "Emily - you're being dumb."

"And so are you!" I said.

"You're both dumb - that's why your dating one another," Fred said.

"Stay out of this," George snapped.

"That would be much easier to do if you weren't shouting in my ear," Fred retorted. "Now - both of you need to knock it off. Emily - you need to understand what you are doing is hurting George and he needs to understand why you are doing this. Ever heard of a compromise?"

"But - " George started.

"No buts," Fred said. "You both need to stop fighting - you love each other and you need to stop bickering because the other cares too much. Oh my god - I'm turning into Mum. See what you're doing to me!"

As soon as we found our seats, Fred stepped aside so that we were sitting next to each other and he rolled his eyes at both of us.

"Crazy kids," he muttered.

He took a seat on the other side of George and then got to talking to Lee about something else without even looking over at us. For a moment, not even George would look over at me. Across from me, Harry seemed to be eyeing the two of us suspiciously - probably wondering what we had just been talking about. Not that it was really much of a mystery considering we had discussed the same thing to everyone else that had found out what Umbridge was doing to us.

"Listen, I'm sorry," I said to George. "I just didn't want to upset you with this..."

"And you figured that this was a better approach?" he asked. "By having me figure out about it long after it had started?"

"I don't know what I was thinking," I sighed. "But I really am sorry."

"Well...I'm sorry for freaking out on you then..." he said. "But I still meant what I said about you taking the wrong route."

"Me?" I asked. "What about whatever it is your planning?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said innocently.

"Oh really?" I asked. "I do recall you saying that she didn't know what she had started."

"Fred was right - this bacon is really good," George said.

"Don't ignore me," I said.

"I'm not," he said. "But that's not something I want to discuss at the moment."

"Oh really?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I just remembered that I had some homework that I didn't finish," he said. "I should be going."

"We just got here," I said.

"Well, it's due first period," George shrugged as he began to stand up.

"Sure it is," I said with narrowed eyes. "Don't think we're done discussing this."

"Say what you want, babe," he smirked. "See you later - love you!"

"Love you too," I smiled.

He gave me a quick kiss and then went to leave before giving me one last smirk. It was amazing how much his mood had turned around since we had walked down to the Great Hall this morning. He was still angry with me, but I guess that Fred had helped us by telling us to compromise.

"So I guess you two are doing better?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah," I smiled. "He's still mad though."

"You should have heard them on the way down here," Fred said with an eye roll as he turned back to us. "Arguing like an old married couple those two were."

"I'm sure he told you what happened," I said to Fred. "Do you understand what I'm trying to do."

"Sure," he shrugged. "But I understand his point too. You're both a couple of idiots."

"And you aren't?" I laughed.

"One of us had to be the genius," he smiled. "It's a difficult role to take, but someone had to do it."

"Yeah right," Ron scoffed.

"Shut it," Fred retorted.

"So was he really angry with me?" I asked Fred.

"Not so much with you as much as he was with Umbridge," he said.

"What is he planning to do?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that," Fred said.

"But it isn't going to get him expelled is it?" I asked.

"No promises on that," he said. "But it won't get him sent to Azkaban like his first suggestion of a plan."

"And that was what?" I asked.

"I do believe there was mention of killing the woman," he smiled. "But I talked him out of that one - said that it wouldn't be good if we wanted to start a business."

"Of course you did," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Try to talk him out of it, would you?" I asked.

"You think I haven't?" he asked with a small laugh. "But he's already set on getting his revenge. Besides, I think she deserves it after what she's done to the pair of you."

"He really shouldn't get involved," Harry said honestly. "As much as I'd love to see the two of you ruin her life, it's probably not good to steer yourselves in her path."

"We're not afraid of that woman," Fred scoffed. "Just wait and see what we have cooking for her - she isn't going to forget what we're planning."

"Would you quit talking about it," I demanded. "It's making me nervous..."

"Well, I best go find what George is doing," he said. "I'll see you lot later."

Once he was gone, I noticed that Hermione had been rather quiet since she had come down here - most of the time she had been glaring at Fred and George. Most likely she was wondering what they were doing as well and how much trouble they were going to get into. Typical Hermione...then again I had been thinking along the same lines myself...

"So Emily..." Hermione started while lowering her voice. "I was speaking to Harry about something last night and - "

"He's already told me Hermione," I said.

"And what do you think about it?" she asked.

"It's dangerous," I said. "And mental."

"So you'll do it?" Ron asked.

"I never said that," I said defensively. "I don't know how you're planning to pull this off with Umbridge searching every corner for people breaking the rules."

"But that's the thing - " Hermione started.

"You better watch what you're saying," someone said behind me.

Knowing exactly that it was Snape, I knew that we weren't in too much trouble, but I wasn't all that sure how much he had heard.

"Good morning professor," I said with a smile.

"You better be happy that I'm not Umbridge," he muttered.

"I wouldn't say you're much better than her - " Harry started before he was nudged by Hermione.

"I don't know what you're planning," he said. "But I ask that you practice caution."

"Thank you for your input professor," I said. "But I'm sure that we should be fine."

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he continued walking through the Great Hall after a quick glance over to where Umbridge was sitting. From what I could tell, all of the other teachers seemed to be avoiding her by sitting on the opposite end of the table or not sitting at all like Snape. Of course, I happened to note a couple of absences that were alarming. Hagrid, who had been absent for a good time now, and Dumbledore. Since the start of the term, I have to admit that I hadn't seen much of him around. What was he up to?

* * *

Harry and I managed to make it through a solid two weeks without getting into any major trouble. Of course, the same couldn't be the same for the person that I happened to be dating. Then again, nothing that he was doing necessarily got him or his brother into any sort of real trouble because it couldn't be proven that it was them. Not that Umbridge hadn't tried to point out that it was them.

Dolores Umbridge managed to get through an entire week without anything out of the ordinary happening to her. Unfortunately - for her anyway - the same couldn't be said for the following week. On the first day, she drank her morning coffee and found herself covered in pimples from head to toe. Mortified, she had run off to the hospital wing to get rid of them.

"So this is what you've been planning?" I had asked George with a laugh as she escaped the room.

"This is only the beginning," George said with a smile.

"So it'll get worse?" I asked.

"Naturally," Fred smiled. "We've made it a goal to make the rest of her year here a living hell."

"So it's just going to be pranking - nothing dangerous right?" I asked nervously.

"Unfortunately," George mumbled. "I had better plans..."

"Better meaning we would be spending the rest of our lives in Azkaban," Fred scoffed. "Not to mention those awful dementors ripping our souls out for their breakfast."

"Fred - we're all gingers," I laughed. "I don't think that a soul-eating dementor is really a problem."

"Funny," George laughed. "But it would be worth it..."

"That's sweet George," I said. "In a demented sort of way - but still sweet."

"Hey - he's not the only one in this scenario," Fred said.

"Don't pretend you aren't only doing this because you love pranking people," I laughed. "But thank you nonetheless."

"Pranking people is a passion of mine..." Fred said with a smile.

Umbridge didn't go an hour throughout that week without something happening to her. After the first few days, she finally decided to bring her own drinks down to the Great Hall in fear of it being spiked with something that they had put in there. Of course, I probably would have done the same if I had ended up with scales for skin on the second day (which wouldn't go away until the sun set for the night), ears and a nose that continued to grow all day until they were about six times what they had been, and finally having the words "I am a manipulative puppet of the Ministry" written across her arm that had a strange resemblance to the words that were written on my hand.

But of course, her misery didn't stop there. When she finally stopped drinking out of the school cups, Fred and George took to doing things a little differently. Often, she would come into her classroom that had been left in complete disarray at the hands of Peeves - no doubt directed by a certain set of twins. Everyone in the school became shocked to find her classroom mined. It took a good six hours for all of the fireworks to explode - all of which exploded to spell out a variety of profanities and insults directed towards the horrified woman that wore a pink cardigan.

The latest one, just before our weekend trip to Hogsmeade, the twins had managed to plant something in the food that she ate that made her speak in a different tone each time she spoke. So, at one minute, she would be speaking in her normal voice when it suddenly changed to make her sound like she had sucked on one of those helium balloons that I had seen at one of Dudley's birthday parties. Then, she would cough and it would go away to where she began speaking in a voice that became so deep that it sounded very much like a man. The next thing you knew, it would suddenly begin to sound like a variety of other people that were in the school.

During breakfast on the morning of our trip to Hogsmeade, I was finally approached by Snape who seemed slightly amused about something.

"You know, Dolores seems to be a lot more tolerable recently," he said with a smirk.

"Is that so?" I asked.

"Indeed," he said. "Why, it was just yesterday that I had a very interesting conversation with her in the staff room."

"About what?" I asked.

"Oh, the content wasn't very interesting - it was more how she was telling it," he said while looking up at the disgruntled Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at the table. "She sounded a bit like a squeaky mouse and then she suddenly started sounding a bit like me."

"It's a shame I missed that," I smiled.

"You know, I'm going to miss her ever changing voice," he said. "It makes her a bit more tolerable to be around...maybe it should be done again some time soon...just a suggestion..."

"I know a couple of people that could make it possible," I said.

He smiled and then began to walk away again.

"Oh - and you might want to add to those two people that I like the new mark on her arm," he said. "It's very fitting..."

Of course, he knew exactly who those two people happened to be - I think that nearly everyone did. Of course, they couldn't really prove that it was them doing it so they couldn't be in any trouble. To be honest, I believed that she deserved everything that she got from the pair.

When the rest of my group joined me in the Great Hall, something else was brought up that I hadn't heard about in a while. Of course, it wasn't that I hadn't thought about it or made small remarks to Harry every now and then about it - but there hadn't really been any real talk about it.

"So have either of you given thought to what I said about...teaching..." Hermione said in a low voice.

Harry and I looked at one another knowingly before we turned back to Hermione who was eagerly awaiting an answer. Ron, who had momentarily stopped eating, even seemed eager to hear what we were going to say.

"You know that we think you're mental, right?" I asked.

"You've both make that pretty clear," Hermione sighed.

"And that everything that we've done only happened because of luck?" Harry asked.

"I wouldn't say all of it," Hermione said. "Viktor was telling me recently that he remembered to two of you knowing a lot for our year in the tournament."

"Viktor?" Ron asked in disgust. "What are you talking to him for?"

"He's a pen-pal, Ronald," Hermione said going a bit pink in the face. "I'm sure that Emily talks to Vector still - don't you?"

"No," I said. "Well, he sent me a letter over the summer, but I suppose he thinks I'm crazy like everyone else does."

"Oh..." Hermione said. "I'm sure he doesn't think that about you - he's probably just busy..."

Of course, I knew better than that. It had been a long time since he had written to me and he had been rather short with me then. It didn't really bother me though because it was a bit awkward knowing that he had once had feelings for me and I was now with George.

"But I guess we could give it a go..." Harry sighed. "So we're just going to be teaching the two of you..."

"Er...well..." Hermione started.

"Oh no..." I said under my breath. "How many people Hermione?"

"Only a few," she said. "And they agreed to meet in Hogsmeade so that we could talk about what we're going to be doing."

Harry and I looked at one another. This is not what we had in mind when we said we would be helping them - we had only thought it would be the two of them, not a whole group. Now that she said this, I wasn't so sure about it.

"Hermione," I said while looking around. "We're going to get caught."

"We are," Harry said. "I didn't realize that you had gotten other people involved in this. It's going to be difficult to hide."

"Don't worry," Hermione said. "I found a good place where we can meet and not get overheard."

"And it's only a few more people?" Harry asked.

"Of course," Hermione said while looking away nervously.

Something in the pit of my stomach told me that Hermione wasn't telling us something about who all was coming. It made me nervous about the whole situation. If it was more than "just a few people," then there was bound to be at least one person that thought we were lunatics and went blabbing to Umbridge about what we were doing. Then again, I expect everyone thought we were lunatics at this point...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up sometime around Monday and Tuesday, in case you were wondering. So, what do you think about Fred and George's pranks - do you have any ideas for some worse ones? I don't mind suggestions!**

**By the way,I am going to eventually rewrite my previous stories because I feel like they weren't very well written and didn't have all that much originality. But I won't be changing them to the point that it's another story completely and it will be very gradual because I'll be writing this story as well. Just thought I should tell you all in case you were interested. It's probably not going to happen for a good while though.**

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	21. Planning for a Rebellion

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 21**

"So where are we meeting these people?" I asked Hermione as we walked through the streets of Hogsmeade.

As usual, the streets were packed with Hogwarts students that were going in and out of the various shops that were set up in the village. Fred and George had been with us when we had arrived here but they had escaped to go to Zonko's Joke Shop. Normally I would have gone with them, but Hermione insisted that we go to our meeting place instead.

"I thought that we should go somewhere that we couldn't be overheard..." Hermione said.

"And that would be where?" Harry asked.

"The Hog's Head," Hermione said.

"I've heard that place is awful," I said.

"Me too," Harry said uncomfortably. "And why do we have to do this meeting now? Why don't we just have it at the school?"

"Because we don't want to risk Umbridge overhearing us," Hermione explained.

When we arrived at the bar, I was shocked to see just how vacant it was. Aside from us, there were only a few others in there and they all had a sort of sketchy appearance to them.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked.

"Why can't we just go to The Three Broomsticks?" Harry suggested.

"There are too many people there," Harry said.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Ron said. "Besides, we already told everyone to meet here..."

After taking one more glance around the shabby bar, we decided to take a seat in one of the many vacant tables around the room. Not too long afterwards, Neville came into the bar and easily spotted us sitting down.

"Who was the one that picked this place?" Neville asked me when he sat down next to me.

"Not me," I said. "This place gives me the creeps..."

"Me too," he said. "And what's with the barman?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

When I glanced over at the barman I didn't notice anything odd about him aside from the fact that there was a goat that seemed to be following him around. At the moment, he was putting mugs in the sink and washing them with a dirty looking cloth.

"I don't know, he just reminds me of someone," he said.

Now that the man turned around, I could see what Neville meant. I couldn't tell what it was, but he looked familiar. Maybe it was just our imagination...

Not even twenty minutes after my conversation with Neville, the once empty bar was now packed with students from Hogwarts. In my mind, I was cursing Hermione for inviting all of these people - most of them probably thought we were some kind of joke that they could laugh at.

"I thought you said that it was only a few people," Harry said to Hermione.

"It is..." she said nervously.

"I don't know where you got your definition of a few, but it's definitely wrong," I said.

Surrounding us sat people like Dean, Lavender, the Patil Twins, Cho, Luna, the Quidditch team, the Creevey brothers, Ernie, Justin, Hannah, Ginny, Fred, George, and several others that I recognized from the school. I was shocked to see that some of them had decided to come knowing that we were going to be here - especially Lavender considering how badly she talked about me. When she threw me a disgusted look when she saw me, I knew that nothing had changed. She had probably only come because Parvati had forced her to.

"Hello Emily," Luna said in a very misty voice. "Interesting place, don't you think?"

"Er...sure," I said as I watched the goat that was following the bartender poop on the floor.

"The people here are always nice," she said as she smiled over at the old woman at the bar.

"You would say that," Neville muttered.

I kicked him under the table, but I don't think Luna seemed to mind at all. Actually, I'm not even completely sure if she heard him. Even though a lot of people viewed her as a bit odd, I was still sort of jealous of Luna Lovegood. She just seems to have it all figured out sometimes...

"So what's all of this about anyway?" George asked as he sat down next to me with several Zonko's

products stuffed into a bag.

"You'll just have to wait and see," I smiled. "Patience, good sir..."

"I just thought you would have told me about this before," George moped. "I feel like you don't tell me anything..."

"Oh quit whining," I laughed. "I hardly know what's going on - we hardly even agreed to this until this morning and I'm still not even sure if I want to do it..."

"Then why are you?" he asked. "You shouldn't do anything that you don't want to."

"Well, I told Harry that I would help if he agreed to it," I said. "And I'm almost positive that Hermione is forcing him into the whole situation."

"You know, you really aren't giving me any clues about what is going on," George said.

"Is it annoying you?" I smirked.

"Maybe..." he said.

"Good," I smiled.

He rolled his eyes and soon enough, I turned around to see that everyone was now finding a seat while holding a Butterbeer in hand that, by the looks of it, Fred had bought for them. When people began looking from Harry to me, I realized just how nervous I was about the whole situation here.

What if they were only here because they heard we're crazy and want to have some proof? Do they think that this whole ordeal is some sort of joke? Maybe they generally are interested in what we're going to say - but what if they think the idea is too dangerous? Or what if they go telling on us to Umbridge? It all seemed so strange...

"Hello everyone," Hermione said when everyone became quiet. "I expect you're all wondering what it is that we're doing..."

"Obviously," Fred said. "Otherwise we wouldn't be here."

"Right..." Hermione said nervously. "It's about the situation with our Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. As I'm sure you've noticed, Umbridge hasn't been teaching us very well..."

"You could say that again," Dean muttered.

"So, I figured - we figured," Hermione said motioning to us. "That we should do something about it. We need to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts as it should be - as it's been taught in the past."

Hermione stopped for a moment and looked around at the crowd in front of us proudly, all of her nerves from before had vanished. When she glanced back at us, I gave her a reassuring smile and she continued.

"So in order to learn how to do this magic properly, we have to turn to someone - or two someones - that have had to learn how to defend themselves for real," Hermione said.

When everyone's eyes turned to Harry and me, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. They knew what Hermione was referring to and I knew that most of them didn't believe her.

"And what makes you think that they know any different from what we know?" Lavender asked.

"They're in the same year as us."

"They've had to do plenty more than we have," Hermione said. "For instance, in our second year, they fought off that Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets."

"And they went to get the Philosopher's Stone from You-Know-Who in our first year," Ron said.

"They know how to produce a Patronus too," Neville said with a smile.

"Really?" Dean asked.

"Yeah - Harry's is a stag and Emily's is a Phoenix," Neville said.

"I heard that Dumbledore had a phoenix as well," Justin said.

"Well, I think hers is a bit different," Neville shrugged.

"They did win the Triwizard Tournament," George pointed out. "I don't think that many fifth years can say that, can they?"

Lavender looked like she wanted to run off and sulk. Naturally, she probably wanted to make a fool out of us both by saying that we weren't fit for the job. Even though I couldn't agree with her more, I still didn't want to give her the satisfaction of insulting us.

"And then they went of to fight off Voldemort last year," Hermione said.

If anyone had looked uncomfortable before, it was nothing in comparison to now. There were a few gasps across the crowd and some nervous glances between close friends. But there was one thing I knew for certain - most of the people didn't believe it.

"Why do you go around saying that for?" a Hufflepuff that I didn't recognize asked. "It's scaring people you know."

"Because it really happened, that's why," Ron retorted. "The real world is scary, isn't it?"

"Where's the proof?" he asked while throwing a glare over at Ron.

"How about the murder of one of our classmates?" Hermione asked sounding strained. "Or is that not enough proof in itself?"

"Not really," he retorted. "Think about it - no one was ever told exactly how Diggory was killed. How do we know that it wasn't just some freak accident in the maze and the Potters are making everything up? Maybe if the two of them would fess up and tell us exactly how it happened - "

"You want us to describe the death of another person?" I asked in disbelief. "And everyone else is calling us crazy - you're a sick person, do you know that?"

"And keep talking about my girlfriend like that Smith and I'll rip your head off," George said threatened.

"We aren't here to talk about Cedric," Harry said forcefully. "And if that's all you came for, then I suggest you make your way to the door because we are not going to talk about that."

The boy from Hufflepuff shut his mouth, but still did look disgruntled. When I had come into the Hogs Head earlier, I hadn't expected something like this. Sure, I expected someone to bring up Voldemort's return and how they thought we were liars, but for someone to even suggest us describing his death for them is completely barbaric. I'm not sure if the thought angered or sickened me more.

"Now, as I was saying before Zacharias interrupted me," Hermione said quickly as she looked pointedly at the boy from Hufflepuff. "We need to learn how to defend ourselves properly - I think that we all can agree on that. But will you all be willing to be taught by Harry and Emily?"

Most everyone nodded in agreement aside from Zacharias who seemed to look annoyed still. Either way, he didn't say anything in protest, so I was to assume that he didn't have an objection about it. That's when I noticed that something was going on with Harry next to me when I looked over at Cho. It was like the two of them couldn't keep their eyes off of one another. I wonder if that was what George and I did before we started dating...

"Right, so we need to figure out now when and where we can meet," Hermione said.

For a moment, everyone was silent and then Angelina raised her hand and the air.

"We can't have these meetings interring with Quidditch," she said.

"Yeah, it can't interfere with any of our practices," Cho said.

"Not ours either," Zacharias said.

"Okay, well I'm going to need to know your schedules and figure out when the best time is," Hermione said. "Any ideas on where to practice?"

"Maybe an unused classroom," Neville suggested. "Like what the two of you used when you were getting ready for the Tournament last year."

"That would work, but it would be risky," Hermione said. "It has to be somewhere that Umbridge can't walk in on us."

"Maybe we could use McGonagall's room," Ron suggested. "I'm sure that she would be up for it if we told her about it."

"I don't think we need to get any teacher's involved Ronald," Hermione said as she narrowed her eyes. "We wouldn't want to put their job in jeopardy if we were to get caught."

Ron shrugged, but excepted that she was right. It was true that McGonagall wouldn't be opposed to us rebelling against the newest staff member, but it probably wouldn't be good if this ended badly. I don't know what I would do if McGonagall lost her job because she decided to help us.

"Hermione, it's starting to get late," I said. "They're going to be expecting us back at the castle soon."

"Right," she said. "I guess we'll figure somewhere to practice later and we'll send messages around to everyone. Which reminds me - everyone needs to write their names down so we know who was here."

There were some objections at first, but then everyone ended up writing their names down. Naturally, some of them were afraid that they were going to get caught if they had their names documented, but Hermione assured them that they were safe with her. Once everyone had signed their names, we all filed out of the Hogs Head and went our separate ways.

"So that went well," Hermione said confidently.

"Except for that annoying Hufflepuff guy," I rolled my eyes. "I can't believe the nerve of him."

"Don't worry about him," George said. "He's a prat anyway - I've seen him loads of times on the Quidditch field."

"We sort of had to invite him though," Hermione said. "He overheard me talking to some of the others and insisted on it."

When we walked passed Zonko's, I could see George's eyes glued to the store in almost longing. When Fred and Lee left to make one more short stop there, I half expected George to go running off with them, but he held my hand firmly and continued to walk on with the rest of us.

"Honestly George - just go," I laughed.

"But I thought that you - " he started.

"I'm a big girl," I smiled. "I think I can make it back to the castle without your guidance. Go have fun."

"I - " he said and then stopped. "Okay - I'll see you later."

With a quick kiss on the cheek, he ran off with his friend and brother to grab some more material that he probably didn't need. George was a strange guy, but that's why I loved him.

When I turned to see how far ahead everyone else had gotten, I noticed that they were already heading into the Three Broomsticks with some other students that we talked to earlier. I began to walk towards them when I suddenly heard my name being called.

"Hey Emily!"

I looked around the clearing for a moment to see who it was that was trying to get my attention and found Draco Malfoy walking alone up towards me with a large grin on his face.

"Hey," I said. "What are you doing here alone?"

"Crabbe and Goyle went to go get some more candy from the shop," Draco rolled his eyes. "I swear that they would live there if they were allowed to."

"Same with George in Zonko's," I laughed.

"I heard that the two of you were fighting," he said. "Does that mean that there's room for a blonde guy in your life."

"We are not fighting," I laughed. "Well, we were - but we aren't anymore. Besides, it wasn't serious enough to have us break up anyway."

"That's too bad," Draco sighed. "I guess that I'll just have to step up my game."

"You do that," I laughed.

"So have you seen Umbridge lately?" he asked with a small smirk.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean all of the crazy things that have been happening to her," he said. "I'm sure you're involved in that somehow."

"Actually, not really," I said. "Well, I suppose that I'm indirectly involved, but I'm not the one that's doing that to her."

"Then I guess I know who is," Draco said while looking over at Zonko's. "And I"m just going to assume that it has something to do with what Snape was yelling at you for a while back."

"Yeah..." I sighed.

"It's strange the way Snape treats you," Draco said.

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, for starters you're a Gryffindor," he shrugged. "And he hates Gryffindors - who doesn't?"

"You're funny," I said dryly.

"I know," he grinned. "But he just seems to treat you a bit different from the rest of the students - better in a way. I even think that he favors you more than some of the Slytherins."

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" I laughed.

"It is," Draco smirked. "But I suppose that the two of you are pretty close then."

"He's always been there for me when I needed him," I said. "He's almost like what I imagine a father would be like..."

It was true that I normally looked up to Snape like he was my father and at times I would often forget that he wasn't. Of course, I would never forget about my real father and everything that he did for me when he could - I guess that it was just complicated in that way. I would like to say that Sirius could have taken on that roles, but I saw him as more of a close friend than anything else.

"There she is!" someone called from behind me.

I turned around and saw Neville leading Harry, Ron, and Hermione down the hill to where I was standing with Draco who was now glaring at them like they were some sort of nasty insects.

"What is he doing here?" Neville asked when he reached us.

"We were just having a word," I said.

"Is that so?" Ron asked. "And what did the little ferret have to say?"

"Shut up Weasley," Draco spat. "Shouldn't you be off begging for some money?"

"Draco!" I yelled. "Don't - "

"I was just leaving," Draco said angrily. "I have better places to be anyway."

"Good, have fun," Harry said with distaste.

Without even a glance back, Draco stalked off towards the candy shop where I expected Crabbe and Goyle to be in. When I turned back to everyone else, they were acting like it was any old day and began to walk off towards the castle.

"Emily - why do you even talk to him?" Harry asked.

"He has moments where he can be decent," I said.

"When?" he scoffed.

"I guess that you're just not around to see it," I said.

"I guess not," Harry said.

"Emily - did you know that my sister was dating Micheal Corner?" Ron asked.

"I think I heard something about it," I shrugged. "Why, what does it matter?"

"I don't like it," Ron mumbled. "She's too young to be dating..."

"I started dating George around her age," I said.

"Yes, but you aren't his sister," Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ronald is being very immature about the entire situation."

"I am not!" Ron said. "Harry - wasn't it weird for you when Emily started dating my brother?"

"It was a bit odd," Harry shrugged. "But everyone could see that it was bound to happen anyway, so it didn't come as much of a shock."

"But you still didn't like it, right?" Ron demanded, sounding desperate for some understanding.

"George is a good guy," Harry said. "So I didn't really mind it much - I see what you mean though."

"Boys are crazy," Hermione rolled her eyes at the two of them.

Once we got closer towards the castle, I got to thinking about how during our meeting in the Hogs Head that Cho and Harry couldn't keep their eyes off of one another. Did that freak me out that someone was interested in my brother like Ron was freaking out over Ginny? I guess it didn't really because Cho seemed like a good person. An emotional person, but good nonetheless. I would be fine if they started dating, but I can tell you one thing - if she ever hurt my brother then she would have hell to pay...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up sometime around Friday, Saturday at the latest. By the way, I love the suggestions for pranks that the twins could use against Umbridge - look for them in the upcoming chapters!**

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	22. To Think Umbridge Couldn't Be Hated More

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 22**

When fall finally began to come around, I suddenly began to feel eager about starting up these unauthorized meetings that we were planning. I wasn't sure what it was that sparked my interest so suddenly, but I could narrow it down to two things - either I was looking forward to this new teaching project or it was the fact we were rebelling against the horrid woman in pink. It could honestly be either one at this point.

But all I could think about right at the moment was the constant nagging that I was getting from Hermione about the pranks that Fred and George had been pulling on Umbridge.

"Do you know if they're going to do anything to her today?" Hermione asked as she pulled the sheets up on her bed and put the pillows back in place.

"They don't actually tell me about their plans anymore," I rolled my eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Well you need to tell them to stop," she insisted. "They are going to get caught and I'm not going to try to help them when they do."

"Wait - you want me to say something to them," I laughed. "They listen to me about as well as they listen to you."

"George is your boyfriend," Hermione said. "Which means you have some control over him."

"Hardly," I said as I put the last of my books into my bag.

"Maybe if you tried harder," she said.

"You have to admit those pranks are funny," I said.

Hermione threw me a look that suggested that she didn't think the pranks were funny at all as she sat on her bed and began to sort through her different books that had lying around.

"Oh come on," I smiled. "Not even the one where they had her stuck to the ceiling of the Great Hall?"

"It was...dangerous," she said hesitantly.

"She was shouting the funniest things," I said.

"She was begging for help!" Hermione exclaimed.

"It was still funny..." I mumbled.

After a moment, she looked up at me from her books and gave me a smirk.

"It was a bit funny when they had her grow a tail and horns..." she admitted quietly.

I was about to say something to her when I heard a loud yell and a few thumps not too far from our room. Hermione and I looked at one another and then back at the door just before we both races over to see what was going on. Because my bed was closest to the door, I made it there first and was out in the dorm halls in seconds.

"What's going on - oh," I said quickly.

When I looked down where the steps usually were, I saw Ron lying on the ground with a dumbfounded look on his face. It didn't take me any time at all to discover what had happened. Apparently he didn't realize that the steps didn't allow boys in the girls' dorms.

"Nice job," I laughed.

"Oh shut it, Emily," he said as Harry helped him stand back up.

"It's your fault," I shrugged.

"What were you trying to get up here for?" Hermione asked as she began to walk past me to go down the now reforming staircase.

"Take a look for yourselves," Ron said as he pointed to the Gryffindor bulletin board.

I walked down the stairs quickly and went directly over to the bulletin board to see what it was. Instead of the usual small announcements that were posted, there was a large official looking piece of parchment covering the entire board that read:

_BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS_

_All student organizations, societies, teams, groups and clubs are henceforth disbanded. An organization, society, team, group or club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students. Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge). No student organization, society, team, group or club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor._

_Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an organization, society, team, group or club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled. The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-four._

_Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisito_r

**(Author's Note: This note comes directly from the book - all rights to J. K. Rowling.)**

All of the blood in my face began to drain as I read through the letter. This wasn't some coincidence that she had done this.

"She knows," Harry said quietly.

"How could she?" Hermione asked. "There's no way!"

"Why not Hermione?" I asked. "Someone could have easily told her - maybe someone that wasn't in full agreement with our idea."

"Like Michael Corner," Ron growled.

"I would think it would be more like some Zacharias would do," I said. "He was the one that raised the most objections."

"Or it could have been one of those other people in the bar," Harry suggested. "They could have easily told her."

"Well if they did, we're sure to find out," Hermione said.

"And why is that?" I asked.

"Because I enchanted the parchment that everyone signed," Hermione said. "If anyone tells Umbridge, everyone is going to notice - believe me."

"What will happen?" I laughed.

"Their face will...spell it out," Hermione said vaguely.

"And you said Fred and George are bad," Ron laughed.

Suddenly I felt someone's arms go around my waist from behind me.

"What was that about us?" George asked as he rested his head on my shoulder.

"I think Hermione might have picked up something from some of your little pranks," I smiled.

"Is that so?" he asked.

"How is that?" Fred asked next to me.

"Just that thing you all signed yesterday," Hermione said. "I suggest that the two of you shouldn't tell Umbridge about our plans."

"We have no intentions to," Fred said.

"And I doubt that Umbridge is really going to be wanting to talk to anyone today," George smiled.

"And why is that?" Hermione asked threateningly.

"Oh, no particular reason," Fred smirked. "But I'm sure that she should be having a purr-fect morning."

"You did not just say that," George said.

"Oh I did," Fred said. "And I'm proud of it."

If we didn't understand what the twins had meant while we were in the common room, we definitely figured it out pretty quickly once we made it into the Great Hall for breakfast that morning. Of course, we didn't really hear much from Umbridge at all because of it.

"I heard that Umbridge has been purring all morning," Neville smiled as he stared up at the staff table with delight.

When I looked up to where she was I took note that all of the other teachers seemed to have been in a much better mood with her around now as opposed to their usual grumpy looking selves. I couldn't really blame them much because I'm sure that they are sick of hearing what she has to say.

"How long is that going to stick?" Hermione asked sounding concerned.

"Oh enjoy it while you can Hermione," Fred said. "At least now you won't have to listen to her enormous trap."

"It doesn't last long," George said when he looked up at the table. "I honestly doubt that it'll make it past breakfast. We just figured it would be nice to start the morning off this way."

"Good..." Hermione said. "If it interferes with her teaching then she's likely to become worse..."

"Is that possible?" I scoffed.

"Anyone could teach better than her," George scoffed.

"Oh, so is that why you all chose me?" I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"No, that isn't what I meant," he said quickly.

"Sure it isn't," I smirked.

"You're going to make an amazing teacher," George said. "You do everything beautifully."

I smiled and leaned in to give him a kiss. I wasn't angry with him, it was hard to stay too angry with him.

"I love you," I smiled.

"I love you too," he smiled and kissed me again.

"Oh my gosh, I'm going to gag," Harry said making gagging noises.

"Get a room, would you?" Fred said.

We both laughed and rolled our eyes and went back to eating our breakfast.

Suddenly I watched as Angelina nearly ran into the Great Hall looking angrier than I had seen her in a long time. What was with her?

"Did you see the bulletin?" she asked quickly.

"Yeah, what's your point?" Ron asked.

"It gets rid of ALL groups!" Angelina said. "That includes Quidditch as well!"

Every guy in my general area had their jaw nearly hit the floor with this. When I had read the notice, I hadn't really thought of Quidditch getting thrown out - the only thing that I could think of was that Umbridge must have heard about our group. But as far as we could tell, no one had said anything because their faces all seemed to be as they had been before.

"That's mental!" George said. "They can't ban Quidditch - it's a school sport!"

"But they said that all you need to do is get it approved by Umbridge," I said. "I know that the woman is horrid, but she can't ban Quidditch - there isn't any reason for such a thing."

"Not now anyway," Harry said.

"You better not get into any trouble Potter - do you hear me?" Angelina demanded. "Do not give her any reason to get rid of our team - stay out of trouble, understood?"

"I get it," Harry said defensively.

Without another word, Angelina went off to sit on another part of the table and wouldn't even look our way. Even with her gone, I could still feel the tension and anger that she had left behind.

"She'll kill you, you know?" George said.

"I figured," Harry said. "But I'm not going to say anything to Umbridge anyway."

When the bell rang for our first class - History of Magic - I half expected to see her inspecting the class, but she wasn't there. So as usual, I took my seat next to Neville and laid my head down on the desk preparing for another boring day with Mr. Binns.

I stared ahead in a trance as the teacher floated back and forth lecturing on and on about something that I wasn't paying the slightest bit of interest to. Some part of me wondered if Binns had been this boring when he was alive or whether it was just death that had made it worse. Something told me that he hadn't changed much though. After all, he was bored enough to stay, right?

Then I got to thinking about my one year anniversary that was coming up this winter with George. Should I get him a gift? I suppose that was what you were supposed to do...maybe I should ask Hermione or Ginny what they think...but what would I get him if that was what I was supposed to do? I'm not very good with those kinds of things...maybe -

"Oooh, that's a beautiful owl," I heard someone whisper behind me.

I turned around to see Hedwig sitting outside of the window near Harry. With a quick look back, I noticed that it was Lavender that had said it to Parvait. I don't know what it was, but everything that the girl said made me not like her even more. It wasn't even like she had said anything bad either...I have problems.

I turned back to Binns and let my eyes droop once more as I thought of a good idea for my anniversary with George. Maybe we could go to Hogsmeade since it was during our break for Christmas. I'm sure that would be nice...

Just as I was about to fall asleep, Harry's voice filled the classroom and startled many of my classmates which seemed to be about to fall asleep as well.

"Professor Binns!" Harry said. "I'm not feeling well."

Everyone turned to face him and all seemed amazed that someone actually had managed to stay awake this long. In fact, the most surprised of all seemed to be Professor Binns who looked like he didn't realize that any of us had the ability to speak let alone address him directly.

"I need to go to the hospital wing," Harry said as he began to walk forward in the class looking like he was carrying something large on the side of his cloak.

"Yes...sure, go on," Professor Binns said while still looking shocked.

Harry quickly made his way around all of the desks and then was out of the door just before Professor Binns began talking once more. When I turned to Neville, he had an eyebrow raised in confusion and I probably looked just as dumbfounded.

"What happened?" he whispered.

"No idea," I shrugged.

With a quick look to make sure that Binns wasn't looking, I turned back to ask Ron and Hermione what had happened.

"Something is wrong with Hedwig," Hermione said.

"He looked awful," Ron said.

I nodded my head and looked back towards the door that Harry had walked out of. What had gotten ahold of Hedwig? I wasn't sure if this was common, but it still seemed odd that something would happen to the owl. That's when I suddenly realized where Hedwig had been going and I flipped around to Hermione and Ron.

"You don't think that this had to do with...Snuffles?" I asked.

"Oh no..." Hermione said. "That is where Hedwig came from, isn't it?"

We all looked at each other in horror and then turned back to look towards the front of the classroom with our minds anywhere else but with History of Magic.

...

It felt like hours before we were finally released from History of Magic, but we raced to find Harry who wasn't standing too far away from the classroom that we had just come from. He looked even more concerned than he had when he had left the classroom.

"Are you all right?" I asked him.

"Not exactly," Harry said. "Something is wrong - I just ran into Professor McGonagall and she told me something that I didn't know."

"What?" Hermione asked.

"She said that all communication coming from and going to Hogwarts in being monitored," Harry said.

"Which means that Umbridge must have seen something," I said.

"Exactly," Harry said.

"And what did Snuffles say?" I asked.

"He said that he wants us to meet him where we did last time," Harry said.

"So the fireplace," I said in understanding.

"But if all communications are being watched, doesn't that mean the Floo Network as well?" Hermione asked.

"Can't we tell him that it's too dangerous?" Ron asked.

"I don't think that's possible," Hermione shook her head. "There isn't enough time..."

When Neville caught up with us to go to Potions class, we decided to change the subject. It probably wasn't the best of things to be talking about in a hallway where anyone could hear us anyway.

As soon as we made it to the door of the Potions room, we all crowded around where everyone else was already waiting. As usual, Draco was talking as loud as he could to make sure everyone could hear him.

"Of course, she accepted Slytherin right away," Draco said. "I don't expect that they'll do the same with the Gryffindor team. I mean, who could blame her? No one wants to see them play - it's an embarrassment to the sport."

Harry and Ron gritted their teeth, but didn't open their mouths. That's all they had to do and Crabbe and Goyle would be all over them.

"So what does that make Slytherin?" Neville muttered under his breath.

I laughed, but thought that he was lucky that no one had heard him. I don't think that there would be any hesitation for them to fight Neville.

"You know, it probably has to do with the team's status," Draco sneered. "I mean, just look at their parents. From what I hear the Ministry is looking for an excuse to fire off Weasley's father and, well, just look at Potter - everyone knows he's a lunatic. Maybe they'll finally realize they need to send him St. Mungo's. I hear that they have a special place for people who lose their minds."

My eyes widened and I looked over at Neville whose face had already reddened with anger. Harry looked at me and at Neville and we had just enough time to grab his arms when he lunged for Draco. Just at that moment, and just before Neville broke through my grip, the door to the dungeons opened up.

"What the devil is going on here?" Snape asked.

"It's Malfoy," I said angrily.

"That's not what it looks like to me," Snape muttered. "Get your hands off of Longbottom - both of you. Ten points from Gryffindor."

"Of course he takes points from us," Ron rolled his eyes.

"Make that another five points Weasley," Snape said threateningly. "Keep it up and I'll make it detention."

Everyone was silent and Snape stepped aside so that we could all walk into the room. When I found my seat, Neville was next to me and his fists were clenched and he looked just as angry as he had in the hallway. When he sat down, he continued to glare over at Draco.

"Just wait until after class," Neville said through gritted teeth.

"Neville - please don't," I said. "Malfoy isn't worth it."

"You heard what he said," Neville said. "And I'm not letting him get away with it."

"He didn't know what he was saying," I said.

"You're defending him?" Neville asked in disbelief.

"No, I'm just saying that he isn't worth your time," I said.

"I just thought you would understand..." Neville said. "After meeting them and all."

"I do understand," I said. "But your parents are great people and that's something that a little ferret like Malfoy will never understand."

He was about to say something else when Snape stepped up in front of the class and everyone went silent.

"We have a guest today, as you may have noticed," Snape said motioning to Umbridge in the corner.

I could almost see the look of disgust on Snape's face when she smiled up to him from her seat, but he was quick to hide it.

"Now, we're going to be making a Strengthening Solution today..." he said.

When we finished class and Umbridge finished her usual questionings, we were released to lunch where I went to find George while keeping a close eye on Neville to make sure he didn't snap and find Draco to knock him upside his head.

"Hey babe," George said with a cup of tea in hand.

"Hey," I gave him a kiss as we sat down.

"Do you see this cup?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. "Oh no - what's wrong with it?"

"You'll see in a moment," he smirked.

"Has Ron showed up yet?" Fred asked as he took a seat next to George.

"He should be here in a minute," I said. "He's coming from Potions like I was."

"Excellent," the both said at once.

I put my palm to my face and shook my head. It never failed, they were constantly creating some sort of nonsense. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione found their seats across from the three of us, Fred and George looked like they had just won a prize.

"Would you like some tea Ron?" George asked.

"Er...sure," Ron said looking at them funny. "Wait - what's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," George said. "I just wanted some pumpkin juice instead."

"Emily - did they do something to it?" he asked me, obviously not trusting his older brother.

"He put sugar in it I suppose," I said with a shrug.

"Okay," Ron said as he took it from George.

The twins gave me a wink as Ron tipped the glass back and started drinking the tea. When he set the glass down, I nearly choked on my water when he opened his mouth to talk. Harry looked at his friend and suddenly burst into laughter and, soon enough, we were all doing the same.

"What's so funny?" Ron asked, only making us laugh more when we saw his mouth open.

Instead of his usual white teeth, they were now completely black and his tongue was now changing colors and sparkling every time he spoke. Fred pulled out a mirror from his bag, which I'm sure he brought just for this moment, and put it in front of Ron. He looked angry at first, but soon joined us in laughing.

"What is going on here?" a high voice asked behind us.

It was Umbridge. She had an eyebrow raised and a hand on her hips looking as agitated as ever. When she saw Ron's mouth, her eyes grew wide.

"Mr. Weasley - what is wrong with your mouth?" she asked sounding flabbergasted.

"Nothing," he said putting his hand in front of his mouth.

"Who did this to you?" she demanded.

"I don't know," Ron said sounding a bit panicked.

Umbridge narrowed her eyes and looked at each one of us like she was accusing all of us of this. I half expected her to report all of us for this - something that I'm sure she wouldn't have a problem with.

"You know, a lot of odd things have been happening to me recently," Umbridge said as she glared at us. "And I'm just going to go ahead and assume that whoever did this to Mr. Weasley is directly involved with doing those things to me as well."

We all remained silent and Ron's eyes widened. She was right - for once she had actually figured something out. Not that it really helped anyway. Knowing that one little fact didn't say who had done it. My eyes flickered for a minute over to see what everyone else was doing and Umbridge took that as a confession.

"Miss Potter - you look a bit nervous," she said icily. "Do you know who has done this?"

"No," I said.

"Oh really?" she asked. "Maybe another week of detention will remind you."

My mouth dropped and she gave me one of those wicked smiles. She knew that I was somehow involved - if not directly, then she knew that I at least knew who it was.

"You can't do that," George said angrily. "She didn't do anything!"

"You're getting awfully defensive Mr. Weasley," she smirked. "Feeling guilty about something?"

"Not at all," he narrowed his eyes. "But Emily didn't do anything wrong and you have no reason to give her detention!"

"I am the teacher here," she said angrily. "You have no right to tell me what I can and can't do."

"You're only a teacher here because Dumbledore was forced to hire you," George spat. "No one would hire a bitch like you willingly."

My jaw dropped again and I think Umbridge had the same response. It was as though everyone in the room had heard George because it had suddenly become very quiet.

"Detention Mr. Weasley," she said simply. "I think that two weeks should do the trick."

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope you liked it! Did anyone catch the A Very Potter Musical reference? It was something Snape said to give you a hint. Anyway, the next chapter should be up around Tuesday (possibly before).**

**A special thanks to Olivia Marie 20, gryffindordalek, readheaded-raindrop, and Sara for the pranks I used in this chapter. Also, I will be using some more of the ideas that I've already seen, so look for them in later chapters!**

**Also, there will be more Emily/George moments to come now that they both have detention. Sorry that I haven't been having those very often, it's just that I don't do too well writing those. I'll do my best in these next chapters!**

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	23. Tired of Dealing With Dolores

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (obviously...)**

**Chapter 23**

When we had gotten to the North Tower for Divination after lunch, I felt like I wanted to blow up the school because of how angry I was with Umbridge. Just when I thought she couldn't be any worse of a person, she somehow surprises me by making me hate her even more. However, when I saw Trelawney when I got into the class, I discovered that I wasn't the only one in the room that loathed Umbridge with every fiber of their being.

"Okay class," Professor Trelawney said irritably. "Get your books out and start - you already know what to do."

Everyone looked around for a moment in confusion. Normally the class started out with her attempting to act all mystical. Her bad mood only confirmed one thing:

"She must have gotten her results back from Umbridge," Harry said at the table next to us when Trelawney was out of earshot.

"She couldn't have thought they were going to be any good," Ron said.

"Umbridge made it pretty clear that she thought this class was a joke," Neville said.

"Excuse me over there," Trelawney snapped. "Do you have a question?"

We all looked at one another and then shook our heads before returning to our books. Even though I didn't care for being yelled at, it was almost amusing coming from this particular teacher because of how she usually is with us. Then again it was kind of sad that she had gotten a bad review...not that I had really expected any less.

"What do you think Umbridge is going to do to George?" Neville whispered to me.

"The same thing that she did to me I suppose," I mumbled. "Except she can't say that he was lying."

"She is quite the bitch," Neville sighed.

I laughed and returned to my dream journal after another look was thrown from our teacher. It was the quietest Divination class that we had ever had and hardly anyone muttered a word before we climbed down the ladder and made it to our next class.

"Do you think they'll fire her?" George asked when he caught up with us and we had told him about Trelawney.

"Can Umbridge even do that?" I asked. "I'm pretty sure that it's up to Dumbledore, right?"

"I'm not sure," George said. "But I'm sure that if he doesn't fire her then it'll get back to Fudge and he'll find some way to force him to."

"That's true, I hadn't thought of that," I said.

"What class do you have next anyway?" he asked.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," I said through my teeth.

"Of course you do," George sighed. "Don't let her say anything to you and make sure you don't give her a reason to give you any more detention."

"You're one to talk," I laughed.

"This is my first detention this year, thank you very much," he said looking slightly offended. "And this will be your...hundredth?"

"Funny," I said with an eye roll. "Half of those detentions were my fault at all - Umbridge provoked all of them..."

"I know, but still," he said.

When we all made it to the classroom, Umbridge was standing outside of the door examining the hallways. When she caught sight of George and me, her eyes narrowed and she seemed to stand up a little straighter to make herself feel taller. I also took note that she seemed irritated that we were holding hands.

"Have fun in class," George smirked.

"How could I not?" I said sarcastically.

While throwing an angry side-glance at Umbridge, George leaned down and kissed me. Just as I was about to pull away, he put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me slightly towards him again. Just as his tongue pushed through my lips, I heard the most annoying noise in the world.

"_Hem, hem_."

When we parted, we both immediately found Umbridge who was glaring at us even more intently now than she was before.

"Have the two of you not been informed about the rules for public displays of affection in the hallway?" she asked irritably.

"What's your point?" George asked bluntly.

"My point, Mr. Weasley," Umbridge said. "Is that if you cannot control your hormones in this school, then I will make sure that you never see Miss Potter again - understood?"

"Not exactly," George said. "But I have more important things to be doing right now instead of listening to you."

"Get to class," Umbridge said darkly.

He gave me one last look before he all but stomped away from the corridor. With one small glare at one another, I walked into the room and found most everyone already sitting in their seats waiting for class to start.

When the bell rang, Umbridge walked into the classroom with a slam of the door and walked to the front of the room with the same fake smile on her face like she was so proud that she had ruined everyone's day by just being there.

"Wands away," Umbridge said. "Begin reading where you left off - no need to talk."

I pulled my book out from my bag and loudly dropped it onto my desk gaining a few looks from the people around me. Neville shot me a look of warning when Umbridge looked our way, but Harry and Ron copied me by dropping their books on their desks as well.

"Is there a problem back there?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Not unless you think there is," I said.

"Start reading," she said as she returned to her paperwork. "No more disruptions."

I rolled my eyes and opened my book up to where I had been reading before. What was the point of this classroom? All we did was read out of a textbook - I don't even know why Umbridge was even in the room. I didn't need her to supervise me while I read out of a textbook.

"This is so ridiculous," I muttered.

"What was that?" she asked from her desk looking back towards where I was sitting. "Did someone have a question?"

"Actually yes," I said. "I do have a question - are you going to actually attempt to teach us anything?"

Everyone looked up from their books and looked from me to Umbridge as if one of us was about to explode. Harry turned around to me with a raised eyebrow.

"And what is that supposed to mean, Miss Potter?" she asked.

"I'm just wondering why you are even in here if you only want us to read out of a book," I said. "That's all we do - you haven't taught me a single new thing this year."

"That's because we are covering the basics," she smiled wickedly. "Now get back to reading."

"I don't think you understand my point," I raised my voice. "You claimed to be such an amazing teacher when you came in here in the beginning of the year - one picked by the Ministry itself - and I'm not so sure about that. You down every teacher that we have had before and I don't understand why - they did their jobs and you aren't doing yours."

"I've heard enough Miss Potter," Umbridge growled. "That's another week of detention for you."

"Good - I'm happy to be there," I snarled.

It was as if the class was at a stand still - no one dared say anything and it almost seemed like no one was even breathing because of how quiet it had gotten. Umbridge and I stared at one another in pure disgust and hatred for one another. I don't know what had come over me all of a sudden, but I just wanted to scream at her because of how much I resented her.

"Nice to know," she said. "Now get back to reading - everyone."

...

"Another week Emily - didn't I tell you to try to stay out of trouble?" George exclaimed at dinner.

"I'm sorry," I shrugged. "I don't know what happened..."

"You don't know what happened?" George asked. "What does that even mean?"

"She just went crazy," Ron spoke up. "You should have seen her - it was actually kind of funny in a weird sort of way."

"It was," Harry nodded. "I can't really blame you though Emily. You were saying what everyone in the room was too scared to say."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"It was meant to be one," Harry smiled.

The group around me got quiet and I heard quiet footsteps behind me that told me that someone was coming up to us. With a small cough, I understood that it was Snape.

"Miss Potter, may I speak with you?" Snape asked.

"About what?" I asked without turning around.

"In the hallway - now," he ordered.

I rolled my eyes and stood up to walk out into the Entrance Hall without even making eye contact with him. I already knew what this was going to be about. He was going to lecture me about getting detention - there wasn't any doubt about that. When I stopped just outside of the Hall, I folded my arms and looked up at him.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Do I even have to say it?" he asked angrily.

"What does it matter - I had detention anyway," I said.

"I am aware of that," he said.

"So you're aware of the fact that it was for no good reason?" I asked.

"No good reason?" he asked.

"She gave me detention for not telling her who was consistently ruining her day," I said. "She claimed that a week of detention should help me remember."

"And of course you do know who it is," Snape said.

"Sure," I shrugged. "But how is that my fault?"

"And I hear that Mr. Weasley received detention as well," Snape said.

"I'm sure you heard how he got it too," I said.

"Of course," he said with a smirk. "Send him my thanks."

"I'll be sure to," I smiled.

"Do me a favor and stay out of trouble," Snape said. "I'm very tired of hearing Dolores' gloating in the teacher's lounge."

"Who said that you had to stick around to listen to it?" I asked.

"Who said that I do?" he asked.

"You make a good point," I said.

Just then I heard quick footsteps coming over to us from the Great Hall. With a quick glance to the side and a flash of pink, I immediately knew who it was.

"Excuse me Miss Potter - I do believe that you should be in my room shortly," Umbridge said. "Severus? What is going on?"

"I was merely discussing Miss Potter's essay with her," Snape lied easily.

"And why couldn't you do that during class?" she asked.

"Because I do not wish to take away from a student's learning time Dolores," he said. "I feel that it would be more beneficial to discuss their other work while they are not attempting to learn new information."

Her eyes narrowed at Snape and with a small smile, she turned to me once again.

"You are due in my office - " she started.

"In ten minutes time," I said quickly. "I am very aware of that Professor Umbridge and I will be there."

"Excellent," she said. "Then I shall see you then."

When she walked away from us, I took note that she seemed to be walking to her room. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that she was going to prepare for our torture session - oh, I mean detention.

"Are her classes that terrible?" he asked.

"With her as a teacher - yes," I said simply. "All we do is read."

"All you do is make potions in my class," he said.

"Yes, but that's what we are supposed to do," I said. "And I actually like your class very much."

"I know that," he said. "You do very well, but I cannot say the same for your brother."

"He doesn't like the class," I shrugged. "Or you, to be perfectly honest."

"And his grades reflect it," he said while ignoring my latter comment.

"He prefers Defense Against the Dark Arts," I said. "Not much different from yourself."

"So I'm sure he detests this new method of teaching," he said.

"Like everyone else, yes," I replied.

"I believe that I am right in saying that he, unlike you, has managed to keep himself out of trouble?" he asked.

"Only because I've been voicing his thoughts for him," I said.

"But he could have easily opened his mouth and been in the same state as you," he said. "But maybe he's a little smarter than I thought."

"Wow, are you complimenting my brother?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "Are you ill?"

"No, I'm insulting you," he smirked. "There is a big difference."

"Sure there is," I said. "Just admit that you don't hate my brother as much as you out off."

"Don't get ahead of yourself Emily," he said. "Your brother and I are like oil and water - we don't mix."

"But he is my twin," I said. "And you don't seem to have a problem with me."

"Not all twins are alike," he said.

"A lot of people say that we are," I said.

"Don't you have some place to be?" he asked.

I looked over at a clock and noticed that there was only five minutes left for me to get to Umbridge's room. As if on cue, George walked out of the Great Hall and spotted me after a moment.

"Er...I think we need to go," he said while eyeing Snape nervously.

"I know," I said. "Let's go."

"I'll see the two of you later," Snape said. "Mr. Weasley, please keep your girlfriend out of trouble."

"Yes sir," George said nervously. "I will try."

We quickly walked up the stairs and tried to walk as fast as we could towards the classroom so we wouldn't be late. Not that being late would hurt us anyway - we both had two weeks of detention either way.

"Snape scares me," George said after a moment.

"I noticed," I laughed.

As we got closer to the classroom, I looked down at my hand where the scar was. It was healing up pretty nicely at this point - it was a shame that it was going to have to be opened up again...

"What is she going to have me write on my hand, I wonder," George scoffed.

"It couldn't be the same as what mine is," I said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because her being a bitch isn't a lie," I smirked.

"Very true," George laughed.

When we finally got to her office, she was already waiting for us there. Glancing at the clock, I noticed that we were just on time with only a few seconds to spare.

"Nice of you to show up," she said evilly.

"Pity that you're actually here..." I said under my breath as I found my seat.

George went to sit next to me but she quickly moved the desk over to the other side of the room. He glared at her for a moment but quickly walked over to sit down at the desk provided for him.

"Now, let's begin," she said. "We're going to be doing some lines - I'm just going to have your write the same one as before Miss Potter."

She set a piece of parchment and her "special" quill down on my desk and then walked over to George with the same materials.

"Mr. Weasley, I would like you to write some lines for me," she said too sweetly.

"I gathered that much already," he said bluntly. "What do you want me to write?"

"Hmmm..." she said. "How about 'I must not pull pranks?'"

He narrowed his eyes, but didn't voice any objections to her. Instead, he grabbed the quill and the parchment and went to start writing when he stopped.

"How many times?" he asked when she was just about to sit down.

"Until it sinks in," I imitated her annoyingly high voice.

"Don't be a smart mouth Miss Potter," she narrowed her eyes. "But yes, write until the message sinks in."

She gave a smiled and when she turned her head down to read her papers, George and I looked at one another and rolled our eyes. I looked down at the parchment and placed the quill down and began to write the words that were carved into my skin.

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

After I had finished writing it several more times, my hand began to get very irritated as the scab broke open and began to bleed slightly. I looked over at the other desk to see George looking at his hand in horror. I didn't need to see his hand to know what was join going on judging by the grimace on his face. When our eyes met, he looked mortified.

"Is there a problem Mr. Weasley?" she asked too nicely.

"Not at all Professor Umbridge," he said through his teeth.

"I didn't think so," she smiled.

I looked down at the parchment in front of me and continued to write the same words that I had written so many times before. Every now and then I would glance over at George to see him gritting his teeth as he wrote down his lines. Although he was doing his best to hide it, I could see the pain across his face. From her desk, Umbridge looked happier than she had before. She knew what she was doing to me and I wanted to hurt her for it. She knew that it hurt me more than anything to see George in pain.

I tried to keep my eyes off of George so that I wouldn't become angrier at the woman, but it became very difficult because I knew that he was in pain. It was one thing for someone to hurt me, but another thing entirely when they hurt someone that I loved. How sick of a person do you have to be? I'm surprised that she hadn't already joined the ranks of Voldemort himself. Then again, there wasn't any proof saying that she hadn't done that.

"Miss Potter," Umbridge said suddenly.

My head jerked up from the parchment and I suddenly realized that my nose had nearly touched the desk and my hand was gripping the quill so tightly that my knuckles were white and my hand was throbbing and bleeding heavily.

"What?" I snapped. "I'm doing my lines."

"I thought for a moment there that you had gone to sleep," she said.

"Clearly I wasn't," I said irritably.

"Then you may continue," Umbridge said smiling.

"I'm glad I have your permission," I said through gritted teeth.

George shot me a look of warning, but it didn't help at all because I had caught sight of the markings on his hand and it only made me angrier at the woman behind the desk. There wasn't anything in the world I wanted more than to choke the life out of her. As I have said, I'm not usually such a violent person, but Umbridge was a completely different case. She redefined my anger completely.

"Okay, let me see your hands," she said after a good while.

I threw the quill onto the desk and stood up abruptly. George stood up as well and quickly made his way to her desk and thrusted his hand toward hers so that she could examine it. My blood began to boil when I saw how inflamed and scarred that it looked. It took every ounce of my self-control to not slap her across the face at that moment.

"It could use some more work," she shrugged. "Miss Potter, yours?"

I held my hand out and took note that fresh blood seemed to be running down it, something that I noticed made a muscle twitch in George's face. She had a small smile go across her face and was quick to make it wider when she looked up at me.

"Yours is turning out nicely," she said. "I'm sure that will be a friendly reminder to keep your mouth shut in my class."

"May we leave?" I asked angrily.

"I suppose so," she said. "I'll expect you both back here tomorrow at the same time."

"I can't wait," I muttered sarcastically.

"There is no need to be impolite Miss Potter," she said. "Don't you realize that I am trying to help you?"

"Help me?" I spat, unable to control myself. "How in the hell is this helping me?"

"Manners, Miss Potter," she said with a smirk. "I'm attempting to teach you to hold your tongue when speaking to those of higher authority. Of course, you would know all about this if your parents had taught you this."

"My parents are dead," I said. "They didn't have time to teach me anything."

"Not that a stubborn child like you would have listened to them anyway," she narrowed her eyes. "Although I've heard that they weren't the most mannerly of people anyway - constantly getting themselves into trouble."

"Do not say another word about my parents," I said threateningly. "It's an insult to their memory to have such a piece of filth speak of them."

"Emily, let's go," George said.

"I suggest you listen to Mr. Weasley," Umbridge said.

"Or what?" I asked. "Going to give me some more detention? That's all you seem to know how to do you coward - "

"Emily, come on," George said as he grabbed my arm.

"I'll see you both tomorrow," she said.

Before I even had time to utter another word, George had grabbed me by the arm and forcibly pulled me out of the room. We both walked quickly away from the classroom, trying to put as much distance between ourselves and her before we stopped or said anything to one another. Finally, when we made it to the common room, I found that the room was empty aside from Harry who was lying asleep in an armchair nearby. George sat me down on the couch and walked over to Harry to wake him up.

"Harry, wake up mate," George said shaking him.

"W-what?" he yawned as he opened up his eyes. "Oh, you're back - Emily, what's wrong?"

"It was just Umbridge," he said. "I suggest that you go to bed - it's late."

"Is everything okay?" he asked looking at me with concern.

"I've got everything under control, you just go to bed," George said.

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure you two got up here okay," he yawned and started walking towards the stairs to the dormitories. "Oh - Hermione left out some of that stuff for your hands."

"Okay, thanks for waiting for us Harry," I said. "Sleep well."

"Good night," he yawned.

Once he disappeared up the steps, George walked over and sat next to me. I looked down at his hand and took it with mine and looked at the bloody letters written on them. It made my heart drop just seeing it and knowing who had done this to him.

"Let me clean this..." I murmured.

I walked over to where Harry had fallen asleep and found a bowl of the liquid that Hermione had made to help our hands and brought it back over to where George was sitting. Then I went over to a nearby closet and grabbed a rag and conjured up a bowl of water nearby so that I could wash the blood off of his hand first. I walked back over to where George was waiting and hen he caught sight of my hand again, he grimaced and looked back towards me.

"Maybe I should clean yours first," he said.

"The blood's already dried," I said. "Don't worry about it..."

I took his hand again and placed it into the bowl of water first. Very gently, I wiped off the blood on his hand and I only saw a small twitch from pain on his face. When I finished getting the last bit of dried blood off of his hand, it all suddenly hit me at once that this was all of my fault. If it wasn't for me getting detention in the first place, he would have never gotten angry and sought revenge on her that landed his detention now. He was hurt all because I couldn't shut my mouth.

"Emily, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing..." I murmured. "I'm sorry that this happened..."

"Why are you sorry?" he asked. "It was Umbridge that did it."

"But..." I started and suddenly my throat closed up and I couldn't speak.

"Emily?" he asked quietly.

I looked back down at his hand and I felt my eyes begin to fill up. This women had tortured George simply for trying to get her back for something she had done to me. I could have easily stopped all of this from happening...he was only getting hurt because he was associated with me.

"I'm sorry George," I said as a tear went down my face.

"Emily - this isn't your fault," he said. "This was all on me."

"No it wasn't," I cried. "It was all my fault and now you're hurt because of it."

"I'm fine," he said. "Seriously."

He wiped the tear from my cheek and pulled me into a hug while putting the bowl of water onto the table beside us. I hugged him back and had a few tears fall down my face again when I laid my head against his shoulder.

"It's okay babe," George said.

"No it's n-not," I said quietly. "Look what she's done to you a-already."

"Look at me Emily," he said.

I sat back up and wiped off the tears from my eyes and he gave me a smile and took my hand in his.

"There isn't anything that she can really do to hurt me," George said. "Other than hurting you."

"I'm fine," I said stiffly.

"Of course you are," he smirked. "And so am I. Honestly, don't worry about me - I'll be fine as long as you are."

"I love you George," I smiled.

"I love you two babe," he said.

He gave me a kiss on the forehead and hugged me again and I hugged him back, never wanting to let him go for anything in the world...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Friday (maybe sooner, maybe later). I hope that you liked my attempt at romance, I know a lot of you have been asking for it! It might be a bit cheesy, but just tell me what you think of it and I'll try to do better next time.**

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	24. The Army That Fudge Feared

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 24**

"You saw Snuffles last night?" I asked Harry. "Why didn't you tell me before you went to sleep?"

"I was half asleep when I saw you come in last night Emily," Harry shrugged. "I wasn't in the right mind to remember anything."

We were sitting in the Great Hall during lunch the next day when Harry just so happened to mention to Ron and Hermione that he had met with Sirius in the common room the night before, just before George and I had gone up to detention. It must have been when I had been speaking with Snape and they must have gotten by me without me seeing them.

"Well what did he say?" I asked.

"He knows about...the meetings that we're setting up," Hermione explained while looking around to make sure no one was listening in to our conversation.

"How did he figure that out?" I asked.

"Mundungus," Ron said. "He was disguised as an old witch in the bar."

"You're kidding," I laughed. "So I guess that the whole Order knows about it by now."

"Including Mum," Ron sighed. "She claims that I am not allowed to participate in it - like I'm really going to listen to her."

"But that isn't what I wanted to tell you," Harry said. "It's about what happened afterwards."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Snuffles was just talking to us like he usually does when he suddenly vanished and..." he looked around for a minute. "Umbridge's hand came through the fireplace..."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"We don't know what she saw," Harry said. "Or what she heard - all we know is that she knew that Sirius was going to be there."

"That must have been why she went to her classroom so quickly," I said. "Just before I went to detention, I was talking to Snape when she went by us and she seemed like she was in a bit of a rush."

"So we think that she was the one that attacked Hedwig and that is how she has been getting her information," Hermione said. "She must be reading both of your mail."

"But how did she know to got to the fireplace - did Snuffles put that in the letter?" I asked.

"No, he just said that we would be talking in our usual form of communication," Harry said. "So how would she have known?"

"There aren't really that many other forms of communication," I shrugged. "She must have figured that it was the only way that he could get through to us and she was ready to catch him in the act."

We all looked up at Umbridge who had her usual fake smile on her face as she talked to Professor Grubbly-Plank about something. How could a woman who consistently ruin people's lives look so happy? Then again, I guess that was what she was good at and she must enjoy it. I'm sure that her and Voldemort would get along so well...

"What's wrong with Fred and George?" Ron asked.

I looked back towards the entrance of the Great Hall to see the two red-headed twins walking into the room looking more uncomfortable than I had ever seen them. Each time they moved their legs, they seemed to be grimacing and when they finally found their seats, they didn't seem to be any more comfortable.

"What are you looking at?" Fred asked Ron.

"Why are the two of you walking like penguins?" he asked.

"None of your business," George said irritably.

"George," I said warningly.

"Fine," he sighed. "We were...testing out some new products of ours...the Fever Fudge..."

"And?" Harry asked.

"Well...it had some side effects," Fred said uncomfortably. "Of course, the product works, but...we ended up growing these huge boils all over..."

"But I don't see any boils," Ron said.

"No, you wouldn't see them," George said. "They aren't in places that we like to show off to everyone..."

"Except Emily," Fred smirked.

"What?" Harry asked defensively.

"Are you trying to get me killed mate?" George said and hit Fred hard on the arm.

"He's just kidding Harry," I laughed.

Even after that was said, I couldn't help but notice that Harry continued to glare over at George like he wanted to choke the life out of him. Sometimes I feel that he is a bit too protective over me...but I love him regardless.

Later that day when the boys went out to practice Quidditch, I decided to sit up in the girls dormitories with Hermione and help her knit hats. I tried to talk her out of making those awful things, but she insisted that they were doing wonderfully and all of the hats had been picked up already and she was sure that the house-elves loved them. I didn't want to tell her, but I had this feeling that they weren't actually keeping them - they were probably in some bin somewhere by now.

"Emily...do you think that we should do these Defense Against the Dark Arts meetings?" she asked me after I had finished making my second hat.

"Are you joking?" I asked. "You're the one that came up with the idea!"

"I know, but...it's a bit risky isn't it?" Hermione asked. "With Umbridge on our case already..."

"She's not going to catch us Hermione," I sighed. "We've already been through this. Besides, we have to practice defensive spells somehow - you've said it yourself."

"I know..." she said.

"And didn't Sirius say that he thinks the idea is brilliant?" I said. "At least that's what Harry's been going on about all day."

"Which is exactly why I'm against it," Hermione said. "He tends to like things that get people in trouble."

"Wait, so you're only against the idea because Sirius is for it?" I asked skeptically.

"It sounds bad when you put it that way, but yes," Hermione said. "He only likes it for the risk which is making me not like the idea..."

"That is ridiculous Hermione," I said. "You shouldn't think about it like that - you're worrying too much."

"I don't know," she sighed. "Maybe I am..."

I shrugged and got to knitting my next hat which was going to be a green and blue checkered hat. As soon as I waved my wand and it got starting, a white-hot pain shot through my skull and my hand flew up to grab my forehead.

"Emily - what's wrong?" Hermione asked as she jumped up from her seat.

"Nothing...I'm fine..." I murmured as I held onto my throbbing head.

I don't know what it was, but something was off - something was going wrong...but what? I closed my eyes and breathed in and out slowly, but it wasn't helping.

"It's your scar, isn't it?" Hermione asked quietly. "Is it...Voldemort?"

"Yes..." I said, somehow certain of my answer.

"Are you seeing anything?" she asked calmly.

"No..." I said softly. "But something isn't going right and he's angry about it. He's not getting something that he's been looking for and it's making him mad..."

Hermione was silent, so I took the time to concentrate on what was going on to see if I could figure anything out if I opened my mind up, but there was nothing. All I could see was some odd shapes and loud noises that seemed like someone yelling. I don't know what exactly had gone wrong, but I know that he must have taken it out on someone because the feeling of anger was beginning to fade.

"Emily, you need to speak with Dumbledore," Hermione said softly.

"No I don't," I said quickly. "He doesn't need anything more on his mind."

"It's affecting you," she said quietly. "His anger is doing something to you."

"What do you mean Hermione?" I asked, completely confused.

"I didn't want to say anything, and don't take this badly," she said calmly. "But you've been acting a little differently lately - angrier in a way. Harry has been to - but I think that this is affecting you more than it is him."

I didn't know what to say. Maybe it was true...thinking back, I had been going off a lot lately and that isn't something I normally do. Is it really because my scar has been bothering me? Could Voldemort's moods really be affecting me this much?

"Well, that's all I'm doing tonight," Hermione said as she started packing away the materials.

"Yeah, me too..." I said as the next hat finished knitting itself.

Once I was ready for bed, I could only think of what Hermione had said. Was Voldemort changing my personality now that he had returned? Was he channeling some of his anger through me? Or did he even know that I could feel his anger?

...

I had a lot of trouble sleeping the night before and found myself waking up earlier than usual with a horrible nightmare where I had become Voldemort myself. Convinced that this had something to do with me worrying about this strange connection with him, if that was even what it was, I tried not to think about it and decided to head down into the common room after I got dressed.

When I first got into the common room, I went around to check the usual spots that Hermione set out hats for the house-elves to find and I found that they were missing. Even if they weren't using them, Hermione was at least going to be amused at the thought that they aren't there anymore. I don't think that they would throw them away, but I wouldn't put it past them if it had angered them enough. Not to mention the fact that they looked like some sort of mishapen sack instead of hats - they could have thought they were trash for all we knew.

When I sat down on the couch, I decided to take a look at the essay that Harry had written for Potions class. He had asked me to check through it to make sure that he didn't have any mistakes that gave Snape an excuse to fail him in there. When I was just about to finish reading and correcting it, Harry was coming down the stairs.

"Good morning," I smiled.

"Morning," he said. "Is it an awful essay?"

"It's better than some of the others that you've written," I said. "It's pretty decent actually, you should do pretty good on it."

"You changed the entire thing, didn't you?" he asked as he fell into the armchair next to me.

"No, I didn't change that much actually," I said as I made one final correction. "See for yourself."

"Wow, there aren't that many marks," he said when he glanced at it. "I'm shocked."

"You must have actually listened in class," I said happily. "I'm so proud!"

"Well...I might have read over some of your notes to be honest..." he murmured.

"Either way, you still learned something," I shrugged.

Harry read through some of the corrections and then set them down on a table next to him. For some reason, he seemed to be rather pleased about something.

"I got Hedwig back last night," Harry said. "Dobby brought him to my room - nearly jumped out of my skin when he appeared."

"That's great, I'm sure Hoot will be happy to have some company," I smiled. "Was Dobby wearing any of those hats that Hermione's been making?"

"Nearly all of them," Harry rolled his eyes. "Apparently he's been making Winky wear them as well."

I shook my head and chuckled. As I expected, the others had no interest in wearing. At least they weren't being thrown away though. After all, I had spent some of my time making them and it would be slightly upsetting if they weren't being put to use at all.

"And I think we've found a place for practicing," Harry said.

So that was it - that was what he had been looking so pleased about.

"Where?" I asked in shock.

"It's called the Room of Requirement," he said. "Dobby told me that it can be used for anything and it's pretty difficult for anyone to find us there. You can't even find the place on the Marauders' Map."

"Are you sure that it's real then?" I asked. "Maybe Dobby has just been dreaming."

"No, I'm sure that it exists," Harry said. "I remember Dumbledore mentioning it before last year - but it was only briefly."

"Are we going to go looking for it then?" I asked him.

"Later today," Harry said. "We should tell everyone and we'll have our first meeting."

"And you do know where it is?" I asked again.

"Yes," Harry said sounding assured. "So start spreading the word around to everyone that we met with and we'll be on our way."

"Did you tell Ron yet?" I asked.

"No, he was out of it last night," Harry said. "He didn't wake up when Dobby showed up - no one did except me."

After we told Ron and Hermione about the place when they woke up, we started spreading the word around to the other members of our group about it and we all agreed that we would meet together to find the place and start our meetings.

All through classes today, I could hardly concentrate on anything because I could only think about the meeting tonight. I had never really had to formally teach anyone before and it was a real mystery on how good Harry and I would do with teaching. Of course there was the factor of trying to keep from getting caught by Umbridge, or anyone for that matter. But Harry had said that this place was considered untraceable, so I guess that we were going to have to count on that.

When the time finally came around and everyone had gotten the message, we all met up with Harry on the seventh floor of the school in a hidden area that we knew no one usually checked. Apparently the room was somewhere around the area.

"So...if it's undetectable," I said. "How exactly are we going to get to it?"

"Just trust me," Harry said. "I know how to get into the room - I'll explain it all later..."

"Hey babe," George said as he and Fred found the group of people waiting. "So...where is the room?"

"No idea," I shrugged. "Harry said that Dobby told him about it."

I noticed that he looked as uncomfortable as he had the day before and I gave him a questioning look.

"What?" George asked.

"You look like you're in pain," I said.

"Well...those boils that I told you about," he said. "They sort of ruptured last night during Quidditch practice..."

"Oh...that's sort of gross," I said with a grimace.

"Like I didn't know that," George said with a wince. "Imagine having to fly a broom with that..."

"Ow..." I grimaced.

"It's your own fault anyway..." Hermione muttered from behind me.

"At least we didn't test this on any first years," George said irritably. "So don't get mad at me."

Hermione rolled her eyes and went over to talk to someone else. She would never approve of his ways, I don't know why he even bothers trying to reason with her.

"Here comes Harry's lover girl," Fred smirked as he walked next to me.

When I turned, I saw Cho and her friend walking over to us. Since they were the last ones to arrive, I was excited to see what this Room of Requirement was now that we were all here.

"Hi Harry," Cho smiled and waved at him as she joined us.

"H-hi - hello," Harry said with a blush.

"Your brother is so smooth," Fred said sarcastically.

"And you think that you are?" I laughed.

"She told you," George laughed.

"Please, I taught you everything you know," Fred said.

"As long as you believe that," George said.

When we counted up all of the people, we allow waited for Harry to show us where the room was. Without saying a word, Harry walked on and motioned for us to follow him. In his hand, he held the Marauder's Map to check to see if we were being followed and if we were in the clear. Soon enough, we came to a stop where Harry looked up at the wall that was empty of any pictures or decorations.

"Okay," Harry breathed. "Dobby said that we need to walk back and forth three times by this wall while concentrating on what we need from this room."

"Er...okay..." I said. "Let's do it then."

The four of us walked forward while everyone else stood back so that no one could see them. I looked up at the blank wall and then closed my eyes. All at once, the four of us began to pace back and forth. While doing so, I was quick to begin concentrating on what exactly we expected from this room.

_We need somewhere that we can practice defending ourselves...where we can learn without interference from Umbridge...somewhere that we can learn properly...  
_  
"Oh my..." I heard Hermione say.

When I opened my eyes, there was a large door standing where the blank wall had once been. We all looked at each other in shock even though we should have expected something like this. Ron held out his hand and took the brass handle that opened up the door. When we walked in, I was shocked at just how big the room in front of us was. The room was perfect.

There were bookshelves full of large books that had everything that we would need to defend ourselves. There were cushions and dummies that we could use to practice Stunning. There were Sneakascopes, Secrecy Sensors, and Foe Glass. It was everything that we asked for and more.

"This is amazing," Hermione said with awe.

Not a moment later, the rest of the group filed in and several mouths dropped when they stepped into the room. Of course, no one had expected such a perfect room to practice in.

"I could have sworn that this was a broom closet," Fred murmured as he began to walk around the room. "George - remember when we shoved Filch into the broom closet here?"

"Yeah..." George said in amazement.

"You must have wanted to hide him somewhere and the Room of Requirement picked up on it," Hermione said. "It fits whatever the seeker wishes."

"It's brilliant," I said.

"How has no one figured out about this room before?" Dean asked.

"I wouldn't think that many people walk around here," Neville said. "And I'm sure that no one knew how to use it."

"How did you figure it out Harry?" Cho asked.

"A house-elf named Dobby told me," he answered with a blush.

"So are we going to start now then?" Ron asked.

"I can't think of a better time since we're all here now," Hermione said. "But I think it's best to get a few things out of the way first."

"And what would that be?" I asked.

"We need a leader," she answered. "And maybe a name for our group."

"I think Harry should be the leader," I said.

"I agree," Cho said quickly.

"Emily - we agreed that you would help me," Harry said pointedly.

"Who agrees that both Harry and Emily should lead these meetings?" Hermione asked everyone.

Everyone in the room raised their hands, even some people that I didn't think would like the idea so much - namely Zacharias.

"Okay, so it's decided," Hermione said. "You are both going to be the leaders - now a name?"

"How about the Umbridge Can Suck It Group?" Fred suggested.

"How charming," Hermione said with a look of amusement. "But I don't think that would be a very appropriate name."

"How about the Defensive League?" Dean suggested.

"Sounds a bit like a Muggle show," I said with a laugh.

"It does, doesn't it?" Dean laughed.

"What about the Defense Alliance?" Cho suggested. "Or the DA for short?"

"What about Dumbledore's Army?" Ginny suggested. "It would be sort of ironic, right?"

"I like that," I said with a smile.

Everyone else nodded in approval. It would be sort of amusing to be named this considering that this was what the Ministry feared the most from the school - that Dumbledore was creating an army of students. And this group was exactly what the Ministry disapproved of.

"All in favor of the DA?" Hermione asked.

Everyone raised their hands in agreement and it was settled. We were Dumbledore's Army - the DA. Hermione quickly wrote the title across the list of names and it was official.

"Well, I suppose that we should start practicing now," Hermione said. "Harry and Emily, I believe that it is your time to take over..."

She motioned over to us and everyone turned their attention to Harry and me making me feel extremely nervous. Of course, we had attention on us a lot, but this was really strange because we knew that they expected us to be great.

"Er...so...I guess we should start with something...simple?" I suggested.

"How about Expelliarmus?" Harry suggested. "It's a very effective spell..."

"A disarming spell?" Zacharias questioned. "Isn't that a bit basic?"

"We used it to get away from Voldemort last year," Harry said, making a few people gasp at the name. "So I don't think that it's really _that_basic of a spell."

"But if you think it's too mediocre, you can teach something else instead," I suggested.

He opened his mouth to say something, but then didn't say anything else. He folded up his arms and looked away from us both.

"Right," Harry said awkwardly. "I guess that we can all break up into groups and practice like that."

Everyone nodded and paired up and spread out through the room. Since we didn't really need to practice this spell and we were considered the "teachers," we decided that we would go around and supervise. While Harry walked over to help Neville, who looked more confused than I had seen him in a while, I walked over to the other side of the room where I found Cho waving her arm improperly.

"I don't think I'm doing this right," Cho told me.

"It's the way you're moving your arm," I said. "It's more of a fluid wrist motion like this - "

I showed her the proper technique and she nodded in understanding.

"Thanks, I'll try that," Cho said with a smile.

I looked over and found Justin and Luna working together and they seemed to be having some trouble judging by Justin's hair looking like he had just stuck his finger in an electrical socket, so I decided to go over and help them when I had a quick thought.

"I'm going to go help them," I told Cho. "I'll have Harry help the two to you - Harry!"

Harry looked over and started walking and I saw him make immediate eye contact with Cho when he saw her. Both of them started to blush and Harry stumbled on his words when he spoke to me.

"W-what is it Emily?" Harry stammered without taking his eyes off Cho. "Hey Cho..."

"Could you make sure that she's doing this right?" I asked. "I need to go help Luna and Justin."

"Oh sure," Harry said nervously. "Brilliant - let's see what you're doing."

With his focus all on Cho, I rolled my eyes and walked over to the other pair. If he was going to be this obvious about liking the girl, he might as well make a move already.

"Hi Emily," Luna said when I stood next to her.

"Hey Luna," I said. "What seems to be the problem here?"

"Everything," Justin said too quickly.

"I'm not really sure," she said. "I think I'm doing something wrong..."

"Well, just show me how you're doing the spell and I'll see what I can do to help," I said.

Luna nodded and Justin looked like he was preparing himself for the very worst of injuries when she pointed her wand at him. When she moved her wand, it was more of a jabbing motion than anything, so I immediately understood what she was doing wrong.

"Expelliarmus," Luna said clearly.

The wand in Justin's hand suddenly began spinning in place, alarming him in the very least.

"Okay, it's the way you're moving your wand," I said. "You seem to be saying the spell very clearly, but you're moving your wand wrong - watch me do it."

"Okay," Luna said.

"Explelliarmus!" I said.

Justin's wand flew out of his hand and Luna began to clap. After giving Luna a strange look, Justin walked over to retrieve his wand and then took his place again.

"That was brilliant," she smiled.

"How about you try now," I said. "Just remember that it's more of a waving motion - not a jab."

She stepped up and pointed her wand at Justin again. She let out a deep breath and then waved her wand while saying:

"Expelliarmus!" she said.

Much to her surprise, the wand flew out of Justin's hand. I don't think that I'd ever seen anyone look so pleased with themselves.

"I did it!" she said.

"Excellent," I smiled. "Now just keep practicing that and you should have it perfected."

She nodded and then went to sending the spell towards an alarmed looking Justin again. I laughed at Justin's reaction and then went to observing everyone else's work. Most everyone was getting the spell for the most part, but there were definitely some mistakes here and there.

"It's getting a bit late," Harry said when he walked over to me.

"I know, we should probably wrap things up now," I said.

"Okay everyone!" Harry shouted trying to get everyone's attention. "That was excellent, but I think that we're going to have to stop for tonight."

"When does everyone want to have the next meeting?" I asked.

"As soon as we can," Colin said excitedly.

"Okay, so this weekend?" I suggested.

"We have Quidditch," Angelina said.

"How about Wednesday?" Harry suggested.

No one had an objections, so we decided that this would be the best time to have the meeting. Of course, we were now more prepared for this next meeting so I figured that we might be able to actually form a lesson in that time.

"We probably shouldn't all leave at once," I said. "So how about we all leave in pairs."

"Oh, and we can't all meet up in the hallway next time," Hermione said. "If we do that again, then we're sure to be caught - we were jus lucky no one saw us this time."

"Okay, if that's all, then I guess we'll see each other again on Wednesday," I said.

Slowly the people in the room began to file out. We made sure to only allow a few people out at a time so that we wouldn't look suspicious if anyone saw us in the hallway. And so ended Dumbledore's Army's first meeting against Umbridge. It felt so good to be able to use magic again...

...

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	25. The DA's Progress and Ron's First Game

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 25**

The DA meetings only improved from the first one. Now that we had a place and we knew the basics of what we had to do, Harry and I found that it was much easier to plan out what all we were going to teach the group. Of course, this did take a lot on our part considering how much we had to set aside.

When Harry wasn't practicing for Quidditch or doing homework, we would meet and discuss our plans for the next meeting and soon enough it became part of our schedule to plan these. We had even gotten to the point where we started to write down the progress of the members to see where we needed improvement.

"I don't think that we need to focus on the Impediment Curse so much anymore," I said as we looked through some of the files. "But I think that the Reductor Curse should be looked into."

"Yeah, some people aren't doing as well there," Harry said thoughtfully. "Maybe if they've done well enough with that then they can work on something more advanced..."

"Or they could work on some of the ones that we've already done," I said. "I don't think it would be good to introduce any new material while we are still working with people on the older stuff."

"Good point," Harry agreed. "Oh, I meant to say something - Dean has been asking when we were going to teach them how to produce a Patronus."

"Hmmm..." I said trying to think on when would be a good time. "It shouldn't be too long from now - I think that they'll be ready for it soon enough judging by the progress here..."

"You sound like such a teacher right now," Harry smirked.

"Well you're the one making me do this," I said. "So I blame you."

"You know you secretly like teaching them," he said nudging me lightly on the arm.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered with a smile.

"Have you ever thought about teaching?" Harry asked. "You know, as a career?"

"Yeah, I've thought about it once or twice," I shrugged. "I'm not so sure though."

"I think you would be brilliant," Harry said sounding honest. "Remember when you used to tutor me before we came to Hogwarts - you were excellent."

"That was only in science," I murmured.

"And now you help just about everyone in Potions," Harry said.

"Yeah, I kind of do, don't I?" I sighed. "I know that Snape said he thinks I should consider teaching after Hogwarts."

"Oh no," Harry said.

"What?" I asked.

"I have the same opinion as..._him_," he said with a grimace.

I rolled my eyes and he laughed as we packed away the paperwork. Before I would put it in my bag, I would place a charm on it that would make it appear like it was just another piece of homework or some notes that I had written so that no one else could read it. We were taking all the precautions we could to make sure we wouldn't get caught. Hermione had even come up with a new way of communication.

"Galleons?" I asked her when she showed them to the DA.

"They aren't ordinary Galleons Emily," Hermione explained. "I put a Protean Charm on them."

"And that means what in English?" Harry asked.

"Fine, let me explain," Hermione said. "See these numbers right here? Normally they are just serial numbers that Goblins put on them, but these are different. The original coin, which I'm going to give to Harry, has the ability to change the numbers and the other ones will mimic it because of the charm. My idea was that we could put the numbers of the time and date of when the next meeting is so that we can all see it."

"And what if we forget to look at the coin?" Neville asked nervously.

"You won't," Hermione said. "Whenever the numbers are changed, the coins will become hot so that you can feel them in your pocket."

"That's brilliant," Ron smiled.

"Thank you," Hermione blushed.

"How did you learn to do that?" an older Ravenclaw boy that I was told is Terry Boot said. "That is NEWT level."

"Oh...I've been doing a bit of reading and I found it," Hermione said awkwardly. "That's all."

"A bit of reading?" Ron laughed. "Haven't you read the whole library Hermione?"

"Don't be silly Ronald, of course I haven't," Hermione said.

This strategy seemed to work out really well because it eliminated any reason for Umbridge, or anyone else for that matter, to overhear us talking about when our meetings were. Of course, this didn't eliminate suspicions of these meetings though. Especially those who could see through our act.

"Professor Snape - I'm finished with the assignment," I said when I walked up to his desk.

He took the parchment from me and scanned through it quickly before he set it down on the paper. I was the first one finished, but I suspected that Hermione might be close behind me with turning hers in. Then again, she did like to look over here a million times to make sure that it was perfect so she might have finished here before I did.

"Thank you Miss Potter," Snape said and then lowered his voice. "May I ask you a question?"

"I don't see why not," I shrugged.

"You're up to something," Snape said.

"That wasn't a question," I pointed out.

"But you didn't deny it," Snape raised his eyebrow. "So I assume that you _are_up to something."

"I'm not going to confirm anything," I said quickly. "But where do you get that idea?"

"No detentions for a good amount of time," he said. "You don't seem to be in a bad mood all of the time and I haven't been seeing you roaming in the corridors recently."

"So you assume that because I'm not getting in trouble that I'm up to something?" I asked.

"Yes," he said simply.

"I'm only slightly offended by that," I said.

"Only one more question," Snape said. "Does this have anything to do with Umbridge?"

"What do you think?" I asked giving him the of-course-you-idiot face.

"I thought so," he said.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Yes, thank you," he smirked. "You can return to your seat - try to calm Longbottom down, I think he's going to have a breakdown in a second..."

"I noticed," I said. "I'll help him."

"What did I tell you about helping other students?" Snape warned.

"Not to do it," I said. "But apparently I'm always breaking the rules, that really shouldn't matter much to me."

He rolled his eyes and went to reading the essay that I had just written. When I sat down, I looked over to see that Neville had nearly half of the essay written and he looked like he was in panic-mode. I guess that I'm going to have to help tutor people in more than just Defense Against the Dark Arts. Hey, maybe I could start up another unauthorized club...NOT.

...

"Ron, you have to eat something," Hermione said.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Ron said in a hallow voice.

I wouldn't doubt that in a second. Today was the first Quidditch match of the season and it was Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, so naturally Ron wasn't eating because of his nerves. I remember that Harry had been the same way when he was getting ready for his first game. But not eating wasn't going to help because they needed all the energy that they could get if they wanted to perform their best.

"You're going to be fine," I said. "It's just nerves."

"I don't know," Ron said. "I'll be right back...I need to go to the bathroom."

He walked out of the Great Hall looking paler than usual which gave me the impression that he was just going away so he wouldn't have to look at anyone. When he got closer to the door, I could hear the Slytherin table singing some sort of chant, but I couldn't quite make out the words.

"Is he really that awful?" I asked.

"When he's nervous he is," George said. "And he's only making it worse - I would bet all of the Galleons in the world that he's going to throw up right now."

"He hasn't been doing the greatest in practice," Harry said. "But he normally does really well if we go out earlier, I just think that he gets nervous when the rest of the team is around."

"Well that isn't very helpful during games now, is it?" Fred said irritably.

"I'm sure that he'll do fine," Hermione said hopefully.

"He better..." Fred said.

Not much longer afterwards, Ron returned to the table and I knew that George had been right - he had just thrown up. He continued to stare at the plate in front of him, but didn't dare touch any of the food on it.

"Hello," someone said behind me.

"Bloody hell," Fred said in shock.

I turned around and instantly got what he was talking about. Standing next to us was Luna Lovegood wearing an enormous lion's head on the top of her head. This had to be her weirdest stunt and that was saying something.

"I'm supporting Gryffindor today," Luna said softly.

"You don't say?" George said with a smirk.

"Don't be mean," I whispered.

"Look at the bloody thing," George laughed.

"Would you like to see what it does?" Luna asked.

"Sure, go ahead," I said.

Even though I was interested in what she was going to show us, I still found it a bit weird that she was wearing a lion's head on her own head. Normally when people support Gryffindor they just make signs or wear Gryffindor colors or something - no one had gotten this extreme, not even in our own house.

When Luna got her wand out of her pocket, she tapped the lion and immediately I jumped back when the thing made an enormous roar that blasted through the entire room. Everyone got quiet and looked over at the strange girl in the hat and she just gave us a smile like this was the most normal thing in the world.

"Well good luck then," Luna smiled.

She walked off towards the Ravenclaw table without even paying attention to the looks people were giving her. It must be nice to not care what people think of you, but I just couldn't see myself being like her...

"She's mental," Fred laughed.

"Brilliant, but a bit off," Harry said with a smile.

When Angelina came over to the table with Madam Hooch, she told them that it was nearly time for the game and they wanted to get out so that they could get a look at the field before they started the game anyway. Ron looked like he was going to collapse from the panic, but he quickly scrambled up when everyone else did.

"Good luck George," I smiled and lowered my voice. "And try not to kill Ron if he gets nervous."

I leaned up and gave him a quick kiss and he smiled back at me and put his arm around me.

"No good luck for me?" Fred asked in a smirk.

"Good luck to you too," I said and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Did you see that George, I think your girlfriend just made a pass at me," Fred said nudging his twin brother.

"Oh shove off," George hit him in the shoulder. "I'll see you all later - love you Emily!"

"Love you too," I called as he went to catch up with Angelina and some of the other members of the team.

Ron and Harry were still standing at the table next to me and Ron looked like he was just about to run off and hide from everyone. A part of me wondered if he was going to throw up again, but he didn't.

"Good luck Ron," Hermione said and stepped over and kissed him on the cheek.

Ron looked like he had just been hit with a Bludger and his hand went up to where Hermione had kissed him like he wasn't sure that it had actually happened. Hermione gave him a smile as Harry began to pull on his arm to get him going so they could catch up with the team.

"Good luck you two," I called to them.

Harry smiled and soon enough both of them were out of the door and on their way to the Quidditch pitch. I had the utmost faith in Harry to do well, but I wasn't so sure about Ron. I just hoped that he wouldn't let his nerves get the best of him.

Just as we sat back down, I heard a voice coming from behind me.

"They're going to need all the luck that they can get," Draco said.

I turned around and found Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle standing behind me with smirks on their faces as if they had already won the game. On their Quidditch robes, I saw a strange looking pin in the shape of a crown that said "Weasley is Our King."

"What is that?" I asked.

"Oh, it's a pin that we made honoring our favorite player on your team," Draco said. "Would you like one?"

"In other words, you're trying to insult him?" I said.

"We just feel that he is the best one on your team because he gives us the best chance of winning," he smirked.

"Ron is going to do just fine," Hermione said.

"Judging by your little boyfriends performance during practice, I don't think he will Granger," he said.

"Oh, so you've been coming to Gryffindor practices again, have you?" Ginny scoffed.

"Probably so they can learn how to be a better team," I said. "And it's always good to learn from the very best."

"Just wait until we win this game," Draco said. "Then we'll be hearing differently from you."

"Keep dreaming," I said.

"Well, I suppose that we better be off," Draco sighed. "We have a game to win."

"Good luck," I said. "You're going to need it."

"We don't need luck to win," Crabbe said.

"Wow, you can talk?" I said.

"Leave Crabbe out of this," Draco said quickly. "Let's go - see you after the game Emily."

Draco stalked off and soon enough the rest of the Slytherin team joined them. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the people at the table.

"Is there a reason that you're the only person that Malfoy calls by name?" Ginny asked.

"Not one that I'm aware of," I shrugged.

After a good while, the entire school began to pile out of the castle to go to the Quidditch field. Everyone looked more excited than ever to start off the season and support the team of their choice. Most people seemed to be supporting Gryffindor, but that didn't damage Slytherin's spirits in the least because I could still hear them chanting something through the roar of the crowd.

"May I sit with you?" a misty voice came from next to me.

It was Luna. Hermione and Ginny gave her an awkward smile and Neville seemed like he wanted to run away to avoid being in the same section as her.

"Sure, go ahead," I said scooting down so she was sitting to my left.

"That's an...interesting hat that you have there Luna," Ginny smiled.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I wanted to have it eating a serpent, but I didn't have enough time to do it."

We all nodded and then she took that awkward moment of silence to tap her wand on the lion again and it let out an enormous roar. Lavender Brown, who was sitting in front of us, let out a scream and fell onto her face.

"I'm starting to like that hat more," I smiled as Lavender tried to stand back up.

When the players walked onto the field, I could see Madam Hooch lining them up and talking to them - probably going over the rules of the game. Once she finished talking to them, Lee Jordan began commentating on the game.

"Okay, I think we're about to start the first game of the season," he said. "I wonder who is going to win this one - better be Gryffindor - "

"JORDAN!" McGonagall yelled.

"Only joking Professor," Lee smiled innocently. "Not really - okay, the Quaffle has been thrown into the air! Let the games begin!"

Players from both teams began to dart across the fields on their brooms and I could only just see Harry on the far side of the field searching around for the Snitch. Just as the Gryffindor Chasers were flying down the field towards the goalpost, I started listening to the chant that the Slytherins were yelling.

"_Weasley cannot save a thing,  
He cannot block a single ring,  
That's why Slytherins all sing:  
Weasley is our King.  
'Weasley was born in a bin  
He always lets the Quaffle in  
Weasley will make sure we win  
Weasley is our King_.'"

I gritted my teeth - they were going to make Ron even more nervous than he already was and that wasn't going to turn out well for our team.

"Do you hear them over there?" Hermione asked in disgust.

"Just try to ignore them, there isn't anything that can be done about them," I told her. "I just hope that Ron isn't hearing this."

Angelina threw the Quaffle at the post, but the Slytherin Keeper managed to block it and throw it back into the game. It was caught by the Slytherin Chasers who were now racing down the field towards Ron. I could only hope that he was going to do well.

"Please don't miss it Ron," Hermione said under her breath. "Please, please, please don't miss it..."

"They are headed right for the Gryffindor's Keeper - I guess this will give us to chance to see what this new player is like," Lee announced. "As you know, Ron Weasley is the brother of the two Gryffindor Beaters, so let's hope that this talent runs through the family - here we go - "

The Chaser threw it right for the middle post and Ron dove to catch it, but missed it by a country mile. Hermione covered her eyes with her hands and shook her head just as the Slytherins went into another verse of Weasley is Our King.

"_Weasley is our King,  
He always lets the Quaffle in;  
Weasley is our King_!"

"Would they please stop," Hermione begged.

Harry, who had been watching our friend in horror immediately dove and began to circle the field in an attempt to find the Snitch. Since Ron's confidence was probably just shot down by missing his first goal, I was almost positive that this game wasn't going to go well for us unless Harry managed to find the Snitch in time.

It wasn't long before the Slytherin team got another Quaffle past Ron and the score was now twenty to nothing in their favor which only made the supporters of the other team chant louder.

"WEASLEY IS OUR KING!" they roared. "HE CANNOT BLOCK A SINGLE RING - "

"This is all Draco's fault," I scowled loudly. "He knew that this would only freak Ron out and make him do worse!"

"THAT'S WHY ALL SLYTHERINS SING - WEASLEY IS OUR KING!"

Ron let two more go by him before Gryffindor made a single goal making the score forty to ten in Slytherin's favor. I could practically feel the panic radiating off of the Gryffindor team - especially Harry who was now desperately looking around for the small golden Snitch.

Just when the Slytherin supporters began to sing their song louder, I watched as Harry dove suddenly - he had seen the Snitch! Draco was quick to follow my brother, but it wasn't any good. Harry zoomed over top of the crowd and I watched the small golden speck he was chasing until his hands grabbed a hold of it once he was back on the field. Just as his hands went around it, I watched in horror as Crabbe took the bat that was in his hand and whacked the Bludger directly at Harry's head.

"No!" I shouted.

But there was nothing that anyone could do and it whacked Harry right in the head sending him to the ground in an instant. I immediately jumped up from my seat and ran through the stadium so that I could get down to the field.

"Potter got the Snitch - Gryffindor wins!" Lee shouted over the roar of the crowd.

Once I was on the field, I realized that Hermione and Ginny weren't too far behind me. I pushed through the crowd of players that had landed on the field already and found Harry sitting on the ground looking dazed.

"Harry - are you all right?" I asked quickly as I knelt beside him. "Just wait until I see that big bastard that hit you - he doesn't know what he's gotten himself into - "

"Emily, calm down - it's fine," Harry laughed. "It isn't the first time I've been hit by a Bludger."

"Yes, but he did it intentionally," I said bitterly as I helped him to stand up again. "He wanted to hurt you because you had beaten him. Now I'm going to hurt him..."

No one around us was really listening all that much because they were busy celebrating their win now that they knew Harry was okay. However, I could hear a few boos from the crowd because of Slytherin's defeat. And they weren't the only ones in a bad mood.

"Nice save Potter," Draco spat. "Good thing you were there to get the Snitch - there wasn't a chance in the world that you would have won with that Keeper of yours. How did he even make the team?"

"I'm sorry, didn't you hear?" I asked. "We already won."

"I'm quite aware of that," he said angrily.

"Then why are you still running your mouth?" Harry retorted.

Crabbe and Goyle walked up behind him and started cracking their knuckles. It would have been considered intimidating if I didn't know better - I'm surprised that they even made it to the field with brains like theirs.

"Did you like my lyrics?" Draco asked. "Wrote them myself - I felt like it was very fitting for your new Keeper."

"Oh shove off," Harry scoffed.

"You're just angry because we won Malfoy," Angelina said. "Come on you two, ignore him."

Fred and George walked over to congratulate Harry on the win and Draco smirked over at them.

"I was going to write another verse you know," he said. "But I couldn't find a word that rhymed with fat and ugly for his mother."

Fred and George looked over at him for a moment, just realizing that he was talking about their mother.

"Or anything that rhymed with loser for his father," Draco continued. "Hey Potter - you've been to their house before - is their mother really as fat as I've heard?"

George's eyes narrowed and he went to step over when Harry and I grabbed his arms at once. Fred was going over to him as well with a look of kill on his face when some of the other girls in team grabbed a hold of him.

"I've heard that the two of you spend the holidays at the Weasleys," Draco spat at us. "How do you stand the smell of them - well, you were brought up by Muggles, so I guess that it's nothing in comparison."

"George, please," I said struggling to hold him back. "It isn't worth it!"

"But maybe it's that the smell reminds you of your mother's stench Potter," Draco sneered.

Suddenly, without warning, Harry let to of George and he broke away from my grasp and ran at Draco with Harry following not far behind him. The other girls had managed to keep Fred back, but that didn't stop him from yelling everything on his mind. Several others surrounded us all and I could hear yelling all around me.

"Harry, George - NO!" I shouted.

Crabbe, who had only stepped away for a moment to be lectured by Madam Hooch, quickly began to run at Harry and George with his bat in hand. Without even taking a second to think, I picked up the bat that George had dropped and ran at him.

"Oh no you don't!" I yelled.

"Emily - don't!" Hermione yelled behind me.

Crabbe went to swing at Harry, but I was faster and hit him hard on the back before he had a chance to swing back completely. There was a loud thud that came from his spine and he began stumbling a bit. When he recovered, he turned on me and I whacked him in the arm and heard a crunch. He went to hit me with his bat and I swung at him again only for him to grab the thing out of my hand and toss it to the side.

"Now you're going to get it you bitch," Crabbe growled.

He went to swing at me when I suddenly saw a flash and George had already tackled him and proceeded to punch him in a mad scramble. I was about to join in to try to get Crabbe off of George when Hermione and Ginny grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the crowd. I began yelling every thought I had as i strugggled against Ginny and Hermione's hild on me - I needed to be in there to help, what if they got hurt? Suddenly a loud whistle was blown and the boys stopped fighting when the Impediment Jinx was thrown at them by Madam Hooch.

"STOP!" she yelled. "What do you all think you're doing?"

All of them stood up to face her and I could still hear swearing from then and saw them all glaring at each other like they were five seconds from murdering one another. Well, aside from Draco who was laying on the ground whimpering and holding onto his bleeding nose.

"I have never seen anything like this in my years at Hogwarts!" Madam Hooch yelled. "Now both of you to the castle - _now_."

George and Harry glanced at each other and then proceeded to walk away from everyone and shove through the crowd to make it back to the castle. Madam Hooch scowled as she helped Draco stand up and Crabbe moved out into the crowd with Goyle covering the black eye that was forming on his face.

"We're going to the hospital wing," she said angrily. "Everyone else needs to get moving unless you want to be expelled for this."

The crowd dispersed quickly once she began to move and I went with Hermione and Ginny that were walking back to the castle like most of the others. We weren't all that far behind Draco and I could still here his whimpering to Crabbe and Goyle asking if they thought his nose was broken. I could only hope that it was.

"Lucky they didn't see you swing at Crabbe," Ginny said.

"You shouldn't have gotten involved Emily," Hermione said. "Especially with Crabbe, you could have gotten hurt."

"He was going for Harry and George with a bat Hermione," I said defensively. "He could have hit them in the head and killed them or something."

From behind me I could hear Fred yelling at the three girls that held him back and he was practically spitting he was so angry.

"You shouldn't have held me back," he said. "Didn't you hear what he was saying - just you wait until I see him again."

"He was trying to provoke you Fred," Angelina said. "Malfoy isn't worth getting a broken limb for - he was just angry because he lost."

When we all got into the common room, we sat there waiting to see what would happen with George and Harry. No one had any idea on how badly they would get in trouble for this, but we suspected that it would be a lot of weeks spent in detention with McGonagall.

"Is it true that you hit Crabbe in the head with a bat?" Neville asked. "That's what I heard from some Hufflepuff boy on my way here."

"She hit him in the back and I'm pretty sure she broke his arm," Fred corrected him. "And I thank you for that - I would have loved to have joined you."

"She shouldn't have done it," Hermione said throwing a glare my way.

"Oh come off it Hermione," Fred said. "He deserved it after what he did to Harry during the game. Did hitting the bloke feel as good as it sounded?"

"Yes it did," I smirked. "But I'm pretty sure he would have killed me if George hadn't gotten to him first."

Fred smiled and leaned back in his chair. Just then Harry and George came in through the door and everyone sat up at once. From what I could tell, they didn't have all that many injuries, but they did look significantly paler than usual.

"So what happened?" Fred asked before anyone else could.

"Umbridge just gave the three of us a life ban from Quidditch," Harry said in a hallow voice.

...

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	26. Giant Problems

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 26**

"What do you mean we have a life ban?" Fred demanded. "Can she even do that?"

"She can now," George grumbled as he sat down next to me. "She passed another one of those damned decrees."

Harry sighed and sat in the armchair next to me and put his head in his hands. Angelina, who was sitting across from me, looked like she was about to lose her mind.

"How is Gryffindor even going to play?" she asked. "That only leaves us with four players!"

"I guess you're going to have to have some more try-outs," George said miserably. "You know, I'm going to make sure that Umbridge regrets this."

"George, you can't, I said quickly.

"Well you can't stop me," Fred said.

"And I can't let Fred do this alone," George said.

"But you all are missing the point!" Angelina exclaimed. "We don't have enough players for the team! How are we going to have try-outs and practice before our next game? This is going to be impossible!"

"There really isn't anything that you can do about it now that Umbridge has control over it," Harry said angrily. "She has to ruin everything, doesn't she?"

"It wouldn't be in character if she didn't," I scoffed.

We all remained quiet, just looking around and thinking to ourselves. This was only the beginning of Umbridge's reign on Hogwarts, I could already tell. She wouldn't stop until the Ministry had complete control of the school just like Fudge wants things. My only problem now was how much they were going to change and what they were going to do with us. Since Harry and I weren't exactly on the best of terms with the Minister, that could mean that they could kick us out of the school because we were considered a "threat."

"Well, I'm going to bed," Angelina said. "Maybe tomorrow will be better...at least I'll be able to think clearly anyway..."

"I think I'll head up too," Fred said.

"I'll be up shortly," George said. "Goodnight."

It wasn't until Ginny had gone off to bed that I realized that we hadn't even seen Ron since the game. Where had he been during the fight? Where was he now? Had he been avoiding us and for what reason?

"Have either of you seen Ron?" I asked.

"No," Hermione said sounding worried. "Maybe he just doesn't want to talk to anyone because he thinks someone will make fun of him for what happened at the game."

"He probably heard that awful song that Malfoy came up with," George said. "He'll be happy to know that I got a good a good hit on Malfoy's face for him."

"You gave him a black eye," I said.

"Fantastic," George smiled. "That's what I was hoping for."

"And I think that his nose was bleeding," Hermione said.

"That would be my work," Harry said proudly.

"We did good mate," George smiled. "At least he won't forget this too easily."

"And I'm pretty sure that Crabbe won't be forgetting you too soon Emily," Harry laughed. "You got him pretty good, didn't you?"

"Only because I had a bat," I shrugged. "He could have easily done the same thing to me - but he probably would have hit a lot harder."

"Either way, you still hit him pretty good," George said. "You know, most girls would try to fight someone Crabbe's size..."

"I'm not exactly most girls," I smirked.

"And that's exactly why I'm dating you," he said.

I smiled and scooted over closer to him and leaned my head down on his shoulder. He held his arm around my shoulder and kissed me on top of my hair. Just then, the portrait to the common room opened up.

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed. "Where have you been - I've been worried sick!"

"I've been just...walking around..." Ron murmured.

He sat down in the armchair across from where George and I were sitting in after a moment and let out a huge sigh.

"I'm sorry about the game," he said. "I'm going to resign from the team first thing tomorrow morning."

"You can't!" Hermione said.

"You were at the game, you saw how awful I was," Ron said. "And don't even pretend that you thought I was good."

"You can't quit Ron," George said. "If you do then there will only be three players on the team."

"What?" Ron asked, his eyes growing large.

Harry sighed as Hermione began to go off into explaining about what had happened. I quickly lost focus and looked down at George's hand and took it into mine. I laid my head back against his shoulder and I felt my eyelids becoming heavy. It had been a long day and I was ready to sleep. George began to run his hand through my hair and I slowly began to fall asleep. I was nearly gone when I suddenly hear Hermione say something.

"Hagrid's back!" she said.

My eyes flew open and Harry looked over at me with excitement. We had to go see what he had been up to since we knew it must have been something to do with the Order. Without even beginning to say anything, Harry jumped up from his chair and ran up the stairs to the dormitories - he was getting the Invisibility Cloak. Ron was quick to follow him and Hermione went soon after to the girls' dormitories, probably for some clothes. I glanced over at George and he just shrugged and yawned.

"I think that I might go to bed," he said.

"Okay, I'll tell you what happens with Hagrid tomorrow," I said.

"Goodnight," he said and kissed me. "I love you."

"I love you too," I smiled.

Once he was up the stairs, I sprinted up the stairs to the girls' dormitories and grabbed my scarf and cloak and ran into Hermione on the way down the stairs. We laughed and kept moving and met up with the boys who were already standing at the portrait hole waiting for us.

"Are you honestly wearing that hat Hermione?" Ron asked.

I looked over at Hermione and noticed that she was wearing one of the hats that she had made for the elves. She pulled the hat down a little further and shot a look over at Ron.

"It's cold outside, maybe you've noticed," Hermione said defensively.

Harry laughed and threw the Invisibility Cloak over all of our heads. We all had to huddle closely together and walk very slow to keep from being shown, but none of us had it worse than Ron who had to bend over so that his feet weren't showing because of how tall he had gotten.

When we made it down the first set of stairs, we hadn't run into any problems with seeing anyone. However, when we were just walking into the Entrance Hall, I walked too quickly and found myself tripping over Ron's feet.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he held his hand out to help me up.

"Who is there?" a voice came.

My eyes grew wide and I jumped up quickly. I went to quickly hide under the cloak again, but it was too late - whoever it was had already come around into the corridor just past where we were standing. I couldn't see or hear them, but I know that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all holding their breath and not moving. Not to mention that I had just felt the Cloak brush up against my hand.

And, of course, the person that had caught me was Snape. At least it wasn't Umbridge.

"Emily?" Snape said. "What are you doing out here?"

"I must have been sleep walking," I lied.

"And you managed to grab your cloak and scarf in the process?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Er...I guess so," I said with a nervous smile.

"You're an awful liar, have I told you?" Snape said. "Now where were you really going?"

"I just wanted to...go outside for a bit," I said.

"You were going to see Hagrid," Snape said. "I'm not an idiot Emily."

"Oh, well I saw him outside the window up in the Gryffindor Tower and I just wanted to make sure that he was okay," I said.

"And you are the only one that wanted to see him?" Snape asked suspiciously.

"What do you mean?" I asked while scratching the back of my hand nervously.

He narrowed his eyes and looked around the room for a minute. I held my breath and hoped that they didn't have their shoes outside of the cloak. Trying to think ahead, I put my hand behind my back and motioned for them to keep going on without me - there was no way that Snape would let me keep going to Hagrid's now that he had caught me.

"Did your brother come with you?" he asked slowly. "Or maybe some of the other ones that you're normally around?"

"Does it look like anyone came with me?" I asked with a raised eyebrow as I motioned around the room.

"No, but I know how the two of you operate," Snape said.

"Do you?" I asked.

"Most of the time," he said.

I nodded and then casually moved my foot back to see if I could feel them there. There didn't seem to be anything there, but that wasn't saying that they hadn't made it out of the room yet. I pulled at my scarf nervously as he narrowed his eyes and walked over towards the door leading towards the stairs where Harry, Ron, and Hermione had only been standing moments before. I held my breath until he walked effortlessly through the area without bumping into anyone - they had gotten away.

"I'm sorry to tell you - " he started.

"Now we both know you're not sorry," I said with a small laugh.

"No, I'm not," he agreed with a shrug. "But I cannot let you go visit Hagrid - I'm sure he'll be settling in and probably doesn't want to be disturbed."

"I guess that I could talk to him tomorrow," I shrugged.

"Yes, I'm sure he would like that," Snape said. "Now, you must go back up to your dormitory."

He pushed me on the back so that I would start walking and we began to go up the steps and towards the Gryffindor Tower. I'm pretty sure that I deserved some sort of award for being the person that got caught after hours most often.

"You aren't giving me detention?" I asked.

"Would you like me to?" he asked. "Besides, when have I ever given you detention for wandering after hours?"

I thought back to all of the other times that he had found me walking the hallways and I started to wonder if he ever actually slept. I wasn't sure if the teachers would take shifts or not, but I had always found him taking the watch. Maybe it was because I normally went out of the room around the same times.

"No, I think I've had enough detention for the year," I said.

"Does that mean that you're not going to get anymore?" he asked.

"Not necessarily," I shrugged. "But I'm not planning on it."

"Good," he said. "I guess that it's a start anyway. Maybe you'll even start going to bed instead of walking around the school after hours."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I laughed. "Besides, I know you secretly don't mind that I do this."

"I find it more interesting than anything else," he said.

"Interesting?" I asked as we turned into another corridor slowly.

"I would often find your mother doing the very same thing," he said. "And I do believe I'd see your father every so often out in the corridors."

I noted to myself on how he seemed to refer to my father in a much darker tone than he did with my mother. I somehow wondered why they had hated each other so much...I know that my father had once played some sort of prank on him, but that couldn't have been it. I still had a small feeling that it might have something to do with my mother...

"Wait - how would you know that?" I asked. "You stayed out after hours when you went to school too, didn't you?"

"What?" he asked.

"So, are you trying to tell me that you did the same thing?" I asked. "After all of the lecturing that you've given me?"

"That isn't my point," he said trying to avoid the subject.

"Well, that's what I got out of it...hypocrite..." I said jokingly.

"Keep it up Potter, I'll give you detention," he said.

"You couldn't do that if you wanted to," I said.

"I've done it before," Snape said stiffly. "I'm not afraid to."

"Yes, but you won't," I said.

There was a pause and I looked over at him and he rolled his eyes as we made our way up the final case of stairs. I secretly wondered if the others had figured out what Hagrid had been up to already, but I knew that I wouldn't find out for a good while. I'm sure that if it was something as serious as we thought then it would take a lot of explaining.

"Well, I do believe that this is my stop," I said as we approached the Fat Lady who was sleeping at the moment.

"I suppose that it is," Snape said. "By the way, are you still involved in something that you shouldn't be?"

"You're referring to the conversation that we had before I assume," I said while picking at my fingernails.

"That would be a good assumption," he said.

"Yes, but it's being postponed for a bit because people are busy," I said vaguely.

"How many people are involved with this?" he asked quickly.

"I can't tell you that," I said.

"And why can you not?" he asked while narrowing his eyes.

"That information could be used against me," I said. "So I will neither confirm nor deny anything that you say to me."

"Why would I use it against you?" he asked.

"Say, for instance, you were put in a situation where a certain teacher in a pink cardigan no longer trusted you and believed that you had this sort of information," I said. "Perhaps, given her new authority, she might just get her hands on a particular potion that forces you to reveal every secret that you have."

"You've thought about this for a while, haven't you?" he asked.

"We are taking every precaution that we can," I said. "We must not get caught."

"I only ask that you keep yourselves hidden," he said. "Keep yourselves safe and make sure that the certain teacher that you talked about doesn't find out about what you're doing or there will be severe consequences."

"We are," I said. "Don't worry."

"I would like you to pass the message," Snape said. "If she does anything, there is only so much I can do to stop her because of this new power of hers."

"I will make sure to do that," I said.

"Thank you," he said. "But really, be careful. Umbridge isn't someone that should be crossed without some caution."

"I've noticed," I said holding up my scarred hand.

"You should be going to bed," he said. "Goodnight Emily."

"Goodnight Severus," I said with a smile.

He smirked and then turned around on his heel to walk in the other way. Without turning back to make sure he was a good distance, I woke the Fat Lady and then went into the common room after she had finished mumbling angrily to herself about being woken up at this hour. When I stepped into the room, I was surprised to see a certain redheaded boy sitting on the couch fast asleep.

"George?" I whispered.

He jerked awake suddenly and rubbed his eyes. It took a moment for him to realize what was going on but he smiled when he saw me and then let out a huge yawn.

"Hey," he said with his eyes drooping.

"I thought you went to bed," I said as I sat down next to him.

"Yeah, I tried to," he said. "But I didn't want to go to sleep without making sure that you got back okay."

I smiled and he put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him. His eyes still drooped and he looked completely exhausted.

"You can go to sleep," I told him.

"Are you going up too?" he asked. "Wait - where are the others?"

"Oh, they went on to Hagrid's hut," I said. "Ron accidentally tripped me in the Entrance Hall and Snape came in there and found me so they just had to go on."

"And you didn't get detention?" he asked. "Well, I guess that you are one of Snape's favorites anyway so I guess you wouldn't."

"No, I didn't get detention," I said as I laid my head on his shoulder again and yawned.

"Why don't you go up to bed," George said. "You're tired."

"You're one to tell me to go to sleep - you look like you're going to pass out," I said. "Besides, I am going to wait up for the others first - I want to find out what Hagrid's been up to."

"Well, I can stay up with you," he said.

"Fine, have it your way," I said with a laugh. "I'm too tired to reason with you."

He let out a small chuckle and then relaxed back against the couch again. I cuddled up to him and he held his arm around me as he laid back against the arm of the chair so that we were laying back. The last thing I remember was George's hands running through my hair before I fell into a deep sleep against his chest.

...

When I found consciousness again, the first sound that I recognized was giggling. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew that wasn't something that I generally woke up to.

"Now why can't I have a relationship like that?" I heard someone ask.

"Well, he does have a twin," someone said nonchalantly.

"It's so sweet though," someone said in a squealing type of voice.

My eyes opened and the first thing I saw was my hand lying on top of George's chest and I was curled up against him. I looked up at his face and saw that he was fast asleep and he stirred a little when my head had moved up. When I looked around, I remembered that I had fallen asleep on the couch with George. It had been night then, but now the sun was shining brightly through the windows.

Then when I looked around, I watched as several girls scrambled away and I found Hermione rolling her eyes in the armchair across from us with a needle in her hands.

"What's going on?" I asked Hermione.

"Third years," Hermione shrugged. "They were touched by your little scene here with George and insisted on watching you."

"They were watching us sleep?" I murmured.

"I tried to tell them that they were being a little creepy," she said. "But you see how well that worked. They were just talking about how much they wanted to have a boyfriend like George."

When I started to move to stand up again, George began to stir more until his eyes fluttered open slowly and he stretched his arms and legs out as soon as I was standing again.

"Good morning," he yawned.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked.

"Never slept better to be honest," he smiled and began to sit up straight.

I leaned down to where he was sitting and kissed him lightly on the lips before I heard Harry's voice from behind me.

"Ah, the love birds are up," Harry said.

"And I assume that you are referring to Ron and yourself when you say that, right?" I smirked.

"You're funny," Ron scoffed.

"I know," I said with a smirk.

"Harry wanted to wake you two up last night," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Of course he did," I said.

"Well, you better be happy that the two of you were only sleeping Weasley," Harry said threateningly to George. "Don't go thinking that anything else will come of this."

"You sound like Mum," George said.

"Oh!" I said suddenly. "What happened with Hagrid - what was he doing out of school?"

Harry looked around the room and then stepped over and sat down on the couch. I sat in between him and George and then Harry lowered his voice to make sure that no one could hear if they were to come into the room suddenly.

"We were right," he said. "He was doing something for Dumbledore."

"What was it?" I asked quietly.

"Well, he was sent on a mission," Harry said. "He was going to find the giants - "

"Giants?" I asked. "What for?"

"He was going to try to convince them to stay on our side," Harry explained. "You see, they said that Voldemort went right after the giants and dementors during the last war and Dumbledore wanted to get to the giants before he could get a chance."

"And how would you get giants to favor us?" I asked.

"Hagrid said that he went to find them in the mountains with Madam Maxine to find them first," Harry said. "And Dumbledore said that to get them on your side you were supposed to give their leaders gifts so they would grow fond of you."

"And did it work?" I asked.

"Well it was working," Ron said. "Until another giant came over and ripped the leader's head off."

"What?" George asked, his mouth falling open a bit.

"Then this giant became the new leader and he hated Hagrid," Hermione said. "The giants nearly killed him, but they managed to get away before they got a chance."

"So...how are we going to get them on our side?" I asked.

"I don't think the chances are that great," Ron said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the Death Eaters got to them while Hagrid and Madam Maxine went into hiding," Harry said. "And the giant took a liking to him."

"Oh no," I said. "So Voldemort has giants on his side now - fantastic."

We all went silent and I tried to imagine Hagrid trying to convince these giants to take sides with us. I had never seen a giant before, but judging by how tall Hagrid was I could imagine that they were significantly bigger in both height and weight.

"You should see Hagrid," Hermione grimaced. "He looks awful."

"What happened to him?" I asked. "Did the giants hurt him?"

"He said that he wasn't," Ron said. "But he looks like it - he has bruises. He didn't have a chance to explain it before Umbridge showed up."

"What was she doing there at that hour?" I asked.

"She must have heard that he had gotten back," Harry said. "She's incredibly nosy."

"You're just now figuring that out?" I said with a smile.

"Emily...it doesn't sound so good for Hagrid," Hermione said miserably.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"She isn't very fond of him judging by how she was treating him last night," Ron said.

"And I've heard that she doesn't like anyone who isn't fully human," Harry said.

"Which can't be good for Hagrid," George spoke up. "Do you reckon she would fire him?"

"She could and she probably will," I said.

"A lot of people have been saying that Hagrid isn't the best of teachers," Hermione said.

"And that's only going to make it worse," Harry said. "She doesn't like him to begin with and when she gives him an inspection she is probably going to do everything she can to make him nervous."

"Did you get a chance to warn him about her?" I asked them.

"We said something before we left," Hermione said.

"But I don't think he listened very well..." Harry sighed.

"I guess we can only hope for the best," I said.

There wasn't anything that we could do to stop Dolores Umbridge from giving a bad report for Hagrid's inspection. Knowing her, I would guess that she would give him the same treatment that she gave Trelawney - and we all knew how that turned out. I just hoped he would be able to withstand her. You would think that after dealing with giants you could take on anything, but it was hard to say...

...

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	27. Waiting for Christmas

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 27**

"Do you think she's going to inspect his class today?" Harry asked as we looked up at Hagrid sitting at the staff table.

"I wouldn't doubt it," I said. "She's probably dying to get him fired at this point - just look at the way she's looking at him."

It wasn't only Umbridge staring at Hagrid though - most of the school kept throwing him a look every now and then. I guess it wasn't all that shocking because his face looked awful because of the massive bruises on it. When I had asked him what had happened when we had walked in for breakfast only moments ago he seemed quick to change the subject.

"I jus hope that he has a good lesson planned," Hermione said nervously. "I tried to help him with making a lesson, but he insisted that he would be fine..."

"I just hope that he will be," Harry said. "But I have a feeling that she is going to do everything in her power to have him sacked."

"Only because he's part giant," Hermione said angrily. "I can't stand people like her - she doesn't even know him and she's already set on firing him simply because of what he came from."

When we went down to his hut later on, we were pleasantly surprised to see that she wasn't with us. However, I was a bit nervous when I saw just where Hagrid had decided to take us for our first class back with him.

"Why are we going to the Forbidden Forest?" Draco scoffed.

"I wanted ter show ya the creatures in their natural habitat," Hagrid said.

"Seems like more of a place that would be his natural habitat," Draco sneered.

"Can't you just shut your mouth for five seconds?" I snapped.

"You know I like a girl with a temper Emily," Draco winked at me.

"Back off Malfoy," Harry said quickly.

"Stay out of this Potter," Draco said.

Harry went to say something else, but was stopped by Hagrid who was now starting off his lesson now that everyone had gathered in the forest. In the distance I could hear some howling, but I decided that we would be safe as long as we stayed close enough to the edge.

"Now, these creatures are attracted to the smell o' meat," Hagrid said as he laid some fresh meat onto the ground. "But I better use their call anyway ter make sure they come."

Once he had finished laying what appeared to be half of a cow down on the forest floor, he let out a loud noise that sounded like an enormous cry from some sort of bird. Although this was an odd thing to do no one dared make a noise. After a moment, I saw something that made me feel instant relief.

"I knew we weren't crazy," I nudged Harry.

It was the same strange creature that we had seen coming into the school. To me it looked similar to a horse with wings coming out of its back and its skin stretched painfully over its protruding bones. Its skin was completely black making its pure white eyes stick out even more.

"They are called Thestrals," Hagrid said. "Now raise yer hand if you can see 'em."

Harry and I raised our hands hesitantly and I was surprised that hardly anyone else raised their hands and most of them had a look of complete confusion on their faces. I was even more surprised when Neville raised his hand along with another boy from Slytherin.

"Why didn't you tell me that you could see them?" I whispered to Neville. "You just looked at us funny when we mentioned them."

"That's because I thought I was the only one..." he murmured.

"Does anyone know why only a few of ya can see 'em?" Hagrid asked the class.

As expected Hermione's hand flew into the air and everyone else looked like they were clueless. I didn't even know why I could see them.

"Thestrals can only bee seen by those who have witnessed death," Hermione said.

"That's right," Hagrid smiled. "Now - "

"Hem, hem."

My blood ran cold as soon as I heard her. Umbridge had arrived and she was now making her way through the group of people surrounding Hagrid and the Thestrals. She was holding her clipboard and had a look of high power about her - she was prepared to fire someone.

"Oh, 'ello," Hagrid said.

"I am going to assume that you received my letter," she asked slowly.

"Er...yes," Hagrid said. "You're going ter be inspectin' my lesson today."

"Yes," she said as she wrote a note on her clipboard. "Now, you were saying?"

"We are lookin' at Thestrals today," Hagrid said. "As ya can see - or can ya?"

"What?" she asked rudely.

"Thestrals," Hagrid repeated. "You know - the horse looking' creatures with the wings."

"Right," she said as she wrote down a note with raised eyebrows. "Continue with whatever you were saying before."

Hagrid's face went blank and he looked back at the class with confusion - her sudden interruption and abruptness with him had apparently taken him off guard and he looked shocked and confused.

"Obviously...has...trouble...with remembering...things..." Umbridge wrote out on her board.

"No - I was saying that Thestrals can be useful creatures - " Hagrid started.

"You do realize that they are classified as highly dangerous creatures, correct?" Umbridge asked.

"They aren't too dangerous," Hagrid said defensively. "I've trained 'em well and they only mad if ya mess with 'em."

"Enjoys...spending time around...dangerous creatures," Umbridge said as she wrote. "Seems...to enjoy...violence..."

Once she finished writing a few more notes, she began to go around and question the other students. Seeming to want to degrade him even more than she already had, she spoke loudly when questioning the others to make sure that he could hear every awful question that she had about him. This wasn't going to turn out good - I could already tell.

"Do you find it difficult to understand him?" Umbridge asked Draco.

"He sounds more like he's grunting to me," Draco said with a smirk. "I don't know if anyone actually learns anything from him because no one knows what he's talking about half of the time."

"Thank you Mr. Malfoy," Umbridge smiled as she wrote down another note on her board.

When she moved over to another Slytherin, I stepped over next to Draco and hit him on his arm so that he would turn his attention to me.

"What?" Draco asked.

"What is your problem?" I asked. "You do realize that he has enough against him without you throwing in your opinion of him."

"Who cares if the oaf gets sacked?" Draco scoffed. "He obviously doesn't know what he's doing."

"You know as well as I do that he does fine," I said. "And what do you think will happen to him if she fires him? He has nowhere to go!"

"How is that any of my concern?" Draco asked.

"You're such a prick," I rolled my eyes and stomped away.

I found it difficult to listen for the rest of the lesson because my blood was practically boiling every time I caught sight of our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. She was going to get Hagrid sacked for sure - he probably could have been the best teacher in the school, but she simply didn't want him there because of his breeding. It wasn't fair at all and there wasn't anything that could be done to stop her.

When we were heading back up to the castle after Hagrid's lesson, I half expected Hermione to start screaming at Umbridge she looked so mad. I couldn't really blame her though, I would love to have yelled at her myself but I wasn't in the mood to get detention.

"She disgusts me," Hermione said as we went towards the entrance to the castle. "She was purposely trying to make Hagrid look bad because she doesn't like him - how is that fair?"

"It isn't," Harry said. "She had no interest in giving him a good report - just look how she treated him last night. She looked at him like he was some sort of animal."

"I still can't believe that I didn't get to go," I said while throwing a hard look at Ron. "I swear that if you trip me again while we're under that cloak it will be the end of you."

"I've told you that I'm sorry," Ron said.

"I know..." I said. "But I'm always getting tripped..."

"Maybe if you learned to walk," Ron said with a smile.

"You're funny," I said sarcastically.

* * *

December came quickly and before we all knew it there was snow on the ground and everyone was eagerly waiting for Christmas to arrive. This year Harry and I were going to the Weasley's to spend the holidays there rather than our usual stay at the castle. To be honest, I couldn't wait to go spend a Christmas the way it should be - with a family. Although it was always nice to spend Christams with Harry like I usually did, it would be a nice change to see a normal Christmas.

However, the break didn't come as quickly as we wanted and we still had to deal with the loads of homework that the teacher's assigned despite the upcoming holiday. It was as if they were trying to make up for all of the days that we wouldn't be there and I couldn't stand it.

"If I have to write another History of Magic essay I think I'll throw up," I said to George during breakfast.

"I know, my Astronomy class is just as bad," George sighed.

"But it's helping us prepare for the OWLs," Hermione said positively.

"Hermione, have I ever told you that you're the weirdest person I've met?" Fred asked.

"That's rude," Hermione said with a frown.

"I'm just saying that you're the only one that I know in this school that actually cares about their education," Fred shrugged.

"And that's a bad thing?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know," Fred said. "It's just weird..."

"Why because you don't care about your grades?" Hermione asked.

"Exactly," Fred smiled.

Hermione rolled her eyes and then I heard the large group of owls flying into the Great Hall to deliver the morning mail. When I looked up, I saw Hoot flying down and he landed directly in front of me with an odd looking box hanging off of his foot. I gave him a small piece of toast that was lying nearby and he flew off happily to join the rest of the owls back at the Owlery.

"Who's that from?" Ron asked.

"Um...I don't know," I said while picking it up and looking at it in question. "It says that it's Snake Jelly Beans..."

"What is that?" Harry asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"Well, it sounds like candy to me," Ron shrugged. "Open it up - I want some."

"Yeah Emily, open the box," Fred said with a smirk.

"Wow Fred, you're a freak," I laughed.

I went to open up the odd looking, multicolored box and jumped back as soon as I did. An enormous shriek came out of the box and I immediately grabbed for George and he busted out laughing and gave a high five to Fred.

"Bloody hell," Ron said with wide eyes. "What was that?"

"Why did you do that?" I yelled at Fred.

"Hey - it wasn't only me!" Fred said defensively and began pointing at George.

"Why?" I asked them both. "Why me?"

"We thought it would be funny," Fred shrugged and laughed.

"And we were so right," George laughed with him.

"You two are idiots," I laughed and rolled my eyes.

"But we're your idiots," George smiled and hugged me.

"You just wait," I said. "I'm going to get you back."

"We're so scared," Fred laughed.

"You should be..." I said.

The rest of the day seemed to almost be a blur of classes where we were given even more homework in. Nothing seemed to really slow down all that much until I found myself sitting on the couch in the empty common room. I let out a sigh and thought about going to sleep until George came walking into the room, only pausing to look at the notice board.

"Did you see the notice on the board?" George asked me as he sat down next to me.

"No, what is it?" I asked.

"Try-outs for the Quidditch team are this weekend," he said with a sigh. "You know, I really hate Umbridge for this..."

"Well, there's nothing that can be done now," I sighed. "Umbridge will make sure of that."

He put his arm around me and leaned back against the chair with a defeated sigh. I knew that Quidditch meant a lot to George, but there was no way that he was going to be able to bend the rules as long as Umbridge was in charge. The only thing that he could do now is hope that Angelina found someone decent to replace the three of them that we're kicked off the team.

"Wait a minute," George sat up suddenly. "I know what we have to do - it's going to be brilliant!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You have to try out for the team!" George said. "You have to take my place - Umbridge would hate that!"

"George - I can't play Quidditch," I said.

"Sure you can!" he said and stood up and pulled me so I was standing up to. "And you have to do it!"

"But I've never played Quidditch," I said.

"That's not true," he said. "You played last summer at our house - remember?"

"That was once," I laughed. "And we weren't even playing seriously."

"You should at least try out," he said. "Please - for me?"

He gave me a sort of pouty look and I nearly melted right there. He was too adorable...and manipulative.

"Fine, but only because you asked me to," I said.

"This is going to be great - I can't wait to see the look on Umbridge's face when you make the team," he said.

"Who says I'll make the team?" I said.

"Trust me - you will," George insisted. "And you have to try out as a Beater because Ginny already told me that she's trying out for the new Seeker and she'll rip my throat out if I set you up against her."

"Fine, but don't get mad at me when I don't make the team - " I said.

"Stop saying that, you will," he said. "You're perfect for the position - just look at the way you hit Crabbe with that bat."

"He's a much larger target than a Bludger," I rolled my eyes.

"Not the point at all," he said.

"You better be happy that I love you," I said. "Because that's the only reason that I'm doing this."

* * *

"You're going where?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Quidditch try-outs," I said. "George said that he wants me to do this - don't get mad at me."

"Who said that I'm angry?" Harry asked. "This is going to be great - she kicks me off the team and my twin sister takes my place."

"Well, not exactly," I said. "I'm trying out to be a Beater - Ginny is going for the Seeker position."

"Ginny?" Harry said in disbelief.

"You know - Ginny Weasley," I said.

"No, I know who you're talking about," he said. "I just wasn't expecting that. That'll be great!"

"Yeah, it's brilliant," I said. "Just imagining Umbridge's face when she sees that the sisters of the guys she's kicking off the team are trying out is making me happy enough to actually want to do this."

"Wait a minute - I'll be right back," he said.

I was about to ask him what he was doing, but he ran up the stairs towards his room so quickly that I didn't get a chance. When he got back he was holding his Firebolt in his hand with an enormous smile on his face.

"I want you to use this," Harry said.

"What - but this is yours," I said. "I don't want to mess it up."

"Come on, I want you to," he said. "I'm sure that it'll be fine anyway. Besides, you don't have a broom and this one won't be used anytime soon anyway."

"Well thanks," I smiled as I took it from him. "I'll be sure to take good care of it."

"Good luck," Harry said. "I'm sure that you'll make the team."

"I don't know," I shrugged. "But it's worth a shot anyway. I'm sure that this broom should help anyway."

"I hope it'll come in good use," Harry said. "I would go with you, but I have some work to do..."

"Have fun," I said sarcastically.

"Oh yeah, homework is always my favorite thing to do," Harry said with sarcasm. "Have fun with Quidditch!"

He gave me a wave and I walked out of the door and down the corridor towards the Quidditch post. George told me that he would have come with me but he had a lot of homework to catch up on since he had been spending so much time making new pranks with Fred for the business and some more for Umbridge.

When I turned into the corridor leading out to the field, I nearly ran directly into someone. I stepped back quickly and nearly lost my balance, but I found it quickly and discovered Snape standing in front of me with a questioning look.

"Where are you going?" he asked. "And why do you have a broom with you?"

"Well hello to you too," I said.

"Hello," he said quickly. "Now what are you doing?"

"I'm trying out for the team if you must know," I said.

"You play Quidditch?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Not really," I shrugged. "But people keep telling me to try out and I figured that I might as well give it a shot."

"Was this your brother's idea of getting back at Umbridge?" he asked.

"It was actually George's," I said. "And I can't tell him no."

"I hope that you can say no to some things," he said.

"You sound like Harry," I rolled my eyes. "Now, would you mind if I went - I would rather not be late for this."

"Fine," he said. "Break a leg."

"Thanks?" I laughed.

He just rolled his eyes and continued walking through the corridor without looking back. I let out a chuckle and then walked out of the castle to find the team already waiting outside. Several people were trying out for the positions that were now open and from what I could tell the majority of them were older guys from our house that I had hardly seen around.

"Emily - I'm so glad you're here," Angelina said.

"You are?" I asked.

"Of course," she said with a smile. "You're my only hope for this position."

"Are the other ones that bad?" I laughed.

"They're a bunch of idiots," she said in defeat. "And I'm surprised that half of them managed to get here. I'm just glad that we have you and Ginny here..."

"Well maybe these people will be good," I said. "You never know."

"I guess that you can't judge a book by its cover," she sighed. "Okay everyone - let's start!"

As it turned out, Angelina was right. The only people that seemed to have at least a teaspoon of talent with this sport were these two boys named Jack Sloper and Andrew Kirke who seemed to be my only real competition for the position I was trying out for. Ginny was practically guaranteed the spot for Seeker because she was the only one that seemed to consistently catch what was being thrown her way - we decided it would be best to use golf balls to practice with instead of a Snitch in case it got lost. I was most surprised with the fact that I was able to fly the broom fairly well. Of course, I wasn't an expert with navigating it, but I got the hang of it after a while and managed to do pretty well with hitting the Bludgers that were coming for me.

Ron looked miserable throughout the entire practice and I think he would have given anything for this to not be mandatory for him. After all, he had mentioned before that he wanted to resigned and I couldn't imagine that he liked having to stay on the team due to the lack of players on there. I'm sure that Angelina had already yelled at him for wanting to quit because she didn't want to have to fill another position on the team.

When the practice finally ended, I was happy to step off of my broom and walk towards the middle of the field where everyone else was meeting together.

"Aren't you Emily Potter?" Andrew asked me on our way over.

"Er...yes..." I said.

"I'm Andrew Kirke," he said and held his hand out.

"Oh, hi," I said awkwardly.

"I'm pretty sure that you're going to make the team," he said. "You seem to do pretty well."

"I guess I'm okay," I said. "I didn't die, so that's a good sign."

"You know, you're funny," he laughed. "You're brother was an excellent player too - I suppose that it must be a family trait."

"Er...sure," I said. "He's much better than me though."

"Well, yes he is," he shrugged. "But I don't mean that offensively."

"I'm not offended, trust me," I said. "I'm just shocked that I managed to stay on the broom."

"You're a pretty good flier," he said. "A little shaky at the start, but you seemed to know what you were doing for the most part."

"Andrew - what are you doing?" Angelina asked him suddenly. "It's my job to determine how well she did - leave her alone."

"I was just saying - " he started.

Angelina wasn't paying attention to him anymore and walked towards the edge of the crowd and blew her whistle. Everyone got quiet and turned their attention to her.

"Okay, that was excellent," she said. "I'm sorry to say that this will be the only day for try-outs because of the limited amount of time we were given, but I do believe that your talents were shown well today and I should be able to choose a few of you shortly. I will tell you all the results shortly."

It didn't take any sort of genius to figure out that she didn't want to be doing this. I could respect that though because she had already chosen her team at the beginning of the year and I could imagine that it would be annoying to have to do it all over again simply because a teacher had taken her players from her.

* * *

We didn't get the results of the tryouts until we had the final DA meeting before the holidays. I was in the middle of helping helping Neville out with his Inpediment Jinx when Angelina walked over to me.

"Hey Emily - could I have a word with you?" she asked.

"Oh sure - hold on a minute," I said and turned back to Neville for a second. "You seem to be doing it right now that you have had some practice - Harry would you mind seeing of he's gotten this right?"

"Sure," Harry said walking away from Luna who had just sent a perfect Disarming Spell towards Justin.

I walked over to Angelina who had a large smile on her face.

"What's up?" I asked her.

"You made the team," she said happily.

"What - I did?" I asked in disbelief

"Well, I'm not going to lie - there was a bit of consideration with another player at first," she said. "But you are way more consistent than they were during tryouts and I figured that you were a better option."

"So who else made it?" I asked.

"Well, Ginny made the Seeker position," Angelina said. "She isn't your brother, but she does really well. Oh, and the other Beater is Andrew Kirke."

"Oh, okay," I said. "Well thanks for letting me on the team."

'You are a good player," she said. "Don't think that you aren't - you got the position because you deserved it."

"Thank you," I smiled, still in a bit of shock.

"I'm going to go talk to Ginny now - I haven't told her yet," she said.

When she left, I stood there for a minute trying to let all of that sink in. I had made the team. She made it clear that I wasn't exactly the best player on the team, but I had already known that. I figured that I was decent, but it wasn't a surprise to know that there were better than me - this has always been more of Harry's thing than mine and it still felt a bit weird that I would be on the team and he wouldn't be.

"Emily!"

I came back to reality and realized that George was standing right next to me with an eyebrow raised.

"What?" I asked.

"I've been saying your name for a bit," George said. "What's going on?"

"I just made the team," I said.

"What - you did?" he asked with wide eyes.

"Wow, you sound awfully surprised for someone that was certain that this would happen," I laughed.

"No, I just can't believe that she got back to you so fast with the results - that's amazing!" he said. "Who else made it?"

"That Andrew bloke and Ginny," I said.

"Is Ginny pretty good?" George asked.

"Yeah, I thought she was," I said. "Angelina said that she isn't as good as my brother, but she does fine."

"Brilliant," he said with a smirk "I can't wait to see Umbridge's face."

Harry walked up next to me and then looked from one to the other with an eyebrow raised up. Something about George's I-am-up-to-someting face probably gave him the hint that something had happened. It was either that or the look of shock on my face.

"Emily made the team," George explained.

"Really - you did?" Harry asked looking pleasantly shocked. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks," I said. "And Ginny is our new Seeker."

"Oh..." Harry said. "She's a good player, isn't she?"

"I thought that she did good," I shrugged. "And apparently Angelina thought so too."

"Did you like the Firebolt - I never asked," Harry said.

"Sure," I said. "It seemed like a good broom...but I don't exactly know much about brooms in the first place, so I guess I wouldn't really know the difference."

"Are you all honestly talking about Quidditch," Hermione said as she walked over to us. "You're supposed to be the teachers here!"

"Emily made the team," George said proudly.

"You did?" she asked in shock.

"Yes, I did," I said looking down at my watch. "Shouldn't we wrap this up - I think that it's getting a bit late."

Harry looked at his watch and nodded in agreement before walking over to grab a whistle that was lying nearby. When he blew into it, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their attention back over to us.

"Okay, that was excellent everyone," Harry said. "But I think we're going to have to stop here."

"You all have been doing really well so far," I said. "We might even start learning how to do the Patronus Charm after the break."

There were some murmurs of excitement but they died down quickly when Harry started talking again.

"Now, as you know, this is going to be our last meeting until after the break," Harry said. "We would still like you all to keep all of the new things that you have learned in mind and just try to prepare yourselves for the next meeting."

"Have a wonderful Christmas!" I smiled.

With that, everyone began to break out into their small groups to leave one by one from the Room of Requirement. Ron walked over with us and we told him and Fred about me making the Quidditch team. I wasn't really that involved in the conversation because I was paying attention to Harry who was looking at Cho. She was standing off nearby without anyone else around her and she looked upset about something.

"Make a move," I nudged him.

"W-what?" he stammered.

"Go say something to her," I said. "This is the perfect moment - none of her friends are around her."

"No, I don't think that - " Harry started.

"Oh come on," I said. "She likes you Harry - I can tell. Just go over there and talk to her."

"Okay," he sighed.

"Good luck," I smiled.

"Thanks," he murmured.

He stepped away from our crowd and then walked over to speak to her. I only watched for a moment longer before I decided that it was best for us to get moving. That and I didn't really want to stick around because I knew that Harry would like to have a bit of privacy.

"What about Harry?" Ron started.

"Just leave him alone," I said and pushed lightly on Ron's back to get him moving out of the door.

"Oooh," George said. "He's putting the moves on for his lady friend."

"You're the only person that I know that says that," I laughed.

"Maybe we should go intervene," George suggested as we walked out of the door. "Your brother seems to like to do that with us..."

"Hey, don't be mean," I said.

"I'm just saying," George shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and laughed as I took him by the hand and walked back towards the Gryffindor common room. George was right though - Harry did seem to intervene whenever George and I would want to be alone, but I wasn't going to be like that for him. Harry had liked this girl for a long time and I didn't want to stop him because I knew that she would make him happy and he really needed that now more than ever.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Thursday! By the way, I didn't really get a chance to go through and check for errors, so if you see one feel free to tell me and I'll go back and fix it. I should probably consider having a Beta reader because that's what a lot of people are saying...hmmm...**

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	28. From Toads to Snakes

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 28**

When we got back to the common room, everyone sort of just hung out in the common room for a while. Personally, all I could think about was how Harry was doing. I suppose that I shouldn't worry too much because Harry would probably do just fine with talking to Cho—but it's normal to worry about your brother, right?

"So do you think he's asked her out yet?" Ron asked us all.

"Probably not," George said.

"He could be doing that right now," Hermione said. "Emily—you tell them."

"Well, they're probably right," I shrugged. "Harry really likes Cho, but I think he's too nervous to ask her out at this point."

"I just hope that he doesn't blow it," Fred said.

"How could he blow it?" George asked.

"Well, he could use that one chat-up line that you used on that girl in our first year," Fred laughed.

"You used to use chat-up lines?" I laughed.

"He's grown a lot since then," Fred said. "Trust me - I've taught him the ways of a true ladies man."

"Says the guy without a girlfriend," Ron laughed.

"So what was the line?" Hermione asked.

"Hmmm..." he said putting his hand up to his chin in thought. "There were so many...oh - how about this one: are you a tower because Eiffel for you."

We all busted out laughing and Fred just shook his head.

"And that isn't even the worst one," Fred laughed. "What was that one—I wish I could rearrange the alphabet so that u and I would be next to each other or something like that."

"No, you're forgetting the one where I go 'kiss me if I'm wrong, but is your name Guadalupe?" George said.

"Oh my god, that is your worst one," I laughed.

"You actually used these?" Hermione laughed.

"Yes, I did," George said. "I won't say that I'm proud..."

"What did the girls say?" I asked.

"Well, some of them laughed," George said. "And others just walked away...I think that they might have thought I was crazy."

"Everyone thought we were crazy mate," Fred said. "Those were the good old days."

Fred and George leaned back on the couch with a smile as they thought back to their early years of schooling. Only a few minutes later Harry walked into the room with a dumbstruck look on his face. To be honest, I had never actually seen him look like this - it made me want to laugh.

"Oh no," Fred said. "I think he might have used one of your chat-up lines George."

We all laughed and then Harry sat down on my left side and looked around at all of us without really saying anything. He let out a small cough when we all looked expectantly at him.

"Well?" I asked.

"W-what?" Harry stammered.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Was it awful?" Ron asked.

"Was what awful?" Harry asked.

"Oh come on mate, don't play dumb," Ron said.

"How was your talk with Cho?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, it was good," he said.

He nodded his head and we all looked at him with a raised eyebrow. I noticed that his face had grown slightly pink and something quickly dawned on me. I knew what had happened.

"You kissed her, didn't you?" I asked suddenly.

"I knew it was something," George said. "He looks like he was hit by a Bludger again."

"Did you?" Hermione asked.

"Er...yes," Harry said without being able to hold back a smile.

"How was it?" Ron asked looking proud of his best friend.

"Well…it was wet," Harry said thoughtfully.

"What?" I asked.

"Well, she was crying..." Harry said awkwardly.

Everyone in our group fell silent and looked at him in disbelief. That was sort of embarrassing. I didn't know what to say to him. I couldn't say that I had ever heard of this happening to anyone before.

"Was it that bad?" Ron asked.

"Oh don't be silly," Hermione said. "Cho is always crying."

"What for?" Fred asked.

"Everything," Hermione said. "Just think about what she has to deal with. I'm sure that she's still upset about Cedric and it's making her upset for liking Harry because she is so confused and on top of that she has to deal with the constant worry for her mother who works at the Ministry who could be fired at any moment - not to mention the usual stress of school!"

"No one stresses that much except you Hermione," Ron rolled his eyes.

"Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean that everyone else does Ronald," Hermione snapped.

"Well she told you," Fred laughed.

We all started laughing and after a minute or so Hermione even joined in and laughed. After a minute or so of that, I noticed that Hermione had been writing something for a good while.

"Hermione, what is that?" I asked. "It looks like you're writing a novel."

"It's just a letter," she mumbled.

She brought the letter up closer to her so that no one would look at it, but her face went red so I knew that something had to be up if she didn't want anyone to know what was going on.

"To who?" I asked.

"Erm...Viktor Krum," she said hesitantly.

Her eyes darted over to Ron for only a millisecond and then she went back to writing and her face was nearly the color of a tomato. Ron on the other hand couldn't have looked any paler than he did right now.

"Why do you talk to him?" Ron asked attempting, and failing, at hiding his annoyance.

"We're just pen pals Ronald," she said quickly. "Besides, what does it matter to you who I talk to? Am I not allowed to have friends?"

"That's not what I was saying," he said going a bit red around the ears. "I was just wondering..."

"Well I'm going to bed," Hermione said irritably. "Goodnight.

"Goodnight," we all said.

We all remained silent until we heard the closing of the door leading into our room. Ron let out a large sigh and leaned back in his chair with an irritated look still on his face from conversation that he just had with Hermione. It was almost comical how jealous Ron would get about Hermione when he wouldn't even make a move himself. Did he really expect her to just wait around forever for him? If he didn't do something quickly then he was bound to lose her to Viktor.

"Why don't you just say something to Hermione already, mate?" Fred asked.

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked defensively.

"Oh come on," George laughed. "You know exactly what he's talking about."

"No, I really don't," Ron said going completely red. "But I'm not going to listen to it...I'm going to bed."

Harry and I looked at each other and rolled his eyes. How could Ron honestly think that he was hiding his feelings from Hermione from anyone? Then again, he might not even realize it himself at this point - but I wasn't so sure about that.

Soon enough I walked upstairs to go off to bed. Everyone else in the room seemed like they were already fast asleep and I quickly got dressed for bed and finally realized just how tired I was. Only seconds after laying my head down on my pillow, I found myself lost in a dream.

We were all sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts class and Professor Umbridge was standing in front of the room as she always does, but there seemed to be a large mass of flies just above her head flying in a circle. There seemed to be something odd about her appearance. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until her tongue suddenly shot from her mouth and snatched one of the buzzing flies right out of the air and brought it right back into her mouth.

My jaw fell open and I looked around the room to see everyone just staring at her like this was the most normal thing in the world - in fact, the actually appeared to be a bit bored by the whole idea. When I looked back up to the front of the room, I nearly fell backwards when I saw that her face no longer had the same appearance. Although her body seemed to be the same and her clothes were just as pink as they usually were, her face had morphed into the head of a toad.

"Is there a problem Miss Potter?" she asked sternly as her tongue shot out again to get another fly.

"I could ask you the same," I said without even thinking who I was talking to.

"I don't appreciate the back talk," her toad like face snarled.

"I wasn't back talking," I said. "All I was saying was that-"

"Out in the hallway—now!" she demanded.

"Fine," I said angrily.

After angrily pushing away from the desk, I stood up and nearly stomped out of the room without bothering to mask my anger. It didn't make any sense - how did anyone else keep a straight face? And where was Harry? When I glanced back for a moment, I began looking for him but the room was gone.

I felt myself lying on the ground as I looked around the dark corridor. I moved along on my belly on the smooth stone underneath me and stuck out my tongue to see if anyone was in the room. There was a man...but where? I hadn't seen one when I had just looked. I turned my head and looked in the direction that the scent was coming from.

There he is! I hadn't seen him before because of the silvery cloak that was falling off of him now. He was tired, I could tell by looking at him. Quickly, before the man had a chance to move, I slithered over and found myself next to him. His eyes fluttered for a moment and I took that moment to strike him once - twice - three times! I could feel his warm blood going down my throat as the man screamed in agony. His screams didn't last long and now he sat still, blood flowing from the cuts that my fangs had created...

"Emily!"

"Emily - wake up!"

"Please make her stop!"

All of a sudden, light hit me and my eyes flew open. Instead of seeing the crippling body beneath me like I had moments before, I now saw two of my classmates standing above me with wide eyes and pale faces. I sat up and looked around the room to find Lavender sitting on her bed with her fingers plugged into her ears and a look of horror etched on her face.

"It was Ron's dad - something is wrong with him," I said quickly panicking. "He needs help, he was being attacked!"

"It was just a dream Emily," Pavarti said sitting down next to me. "Everything is all right."

"It wasn't a dream!" I insisted. "It was real—Hermione, we need to get someone!"

Before she had a chance to even utter a word, someone began shouting from the bottom of the steps. Hermione ran quickly over to the door and I quickly found my footing and joined her. At the bottom of the steps I saw Dean standing there looking slightly horrified.

"Emily! There you are!" Dean said. "Your brother said that he needs you."

I ran down the stairs and followed Dean into the dormitories without even questioning what was going on—I already knew. He must have seen the same thing. When I got into their room, I found Harry sitting on his bed with wide eyes and Ron standing off to the side. Seamus, reminding me somewhat of Lavender at the moment, was standing furthest from everyone with a look of horror and confusion on his face.

"Did you see it?" Harry asked.

"Yes," I said in a hallow voice.

"What is going on?" Seamus demanded.

"Harry - we need to tell Dumbledore," I said. "This can't wait."

"Neville already went off to find help," Ron said quickly. "He should be back in a minute with someone."

Only a moment or two later, Neville came racing back into the room with McGonagall following close behind him. She looked around at everyone in confusion and then tightened the tie on her robe before saying anything.

"Would anyone care to explain what is going on?" she asked.

"It's Mr. Weasley," Harry said. "He was just attacked-I saw it."

"What do you mean that you saw it Potter?" she asked in surprise. "You've been asleep -surely you were only dreaming."

"But I saw it too," I said quietly.

Everyone went silent and McGonagall's eyes darted from one of us to the other without being able to say anything. To be honest, I'm not sure that she really knew what she could say at this point.

"Okay, I believe you," she said quickly. "We need to go see Dumbledore-now."

Harry jumped out from his bed and walked directly over to McGonagall who led us both out of the room. The others wanted to follow us, but she only allowed Ron to come with us because his father was involved - we felt that it was best to keep the information from the other Weasleys until we had evidence that there was something wrong.

The walk to Dumbledore's office seemed to be a blur of panicked thoughts. Harry and I walked only an inch apart from each other and communicated without using words. One simple look was enough to tell us what the other was thinking. Ron trailed quickly behind us completely lost in the loop without a clue about what was going on.

I hardly even recognized where we were going until we stepped past the gargoyle leading into Dumbledore's office and stood quietly at his door. We walked through behind McGonagall and found Dumbledore sitting at his desk. It wasn't until we stood in front of his desk that I realized how much I was shaking.

"Hello," Dumbledore said.

He looked at all of us questioningly, but didn't dare meet our eyes. What was that about? Why wouldn't he look at us? Somehow, Dumbledore refusing to meet our eyes reminded me of something—or someone. Snape had often did this, but I didn't know why.

"They both had a nightmare..." she started.

"It wasn't a nightmare," we both said at once.

"Fine then, you two tell him," McGonagall said.

Harry looked at me and then back at Dumbledore just as he went into telling him what had happened. Our headmaster seemed to be listening, but he wouldn't look up at either of us.

"H-how did you see this happen?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked my voice cracking and shaky.

"From what point of view did you watch this attack?" he asked.

I glanced over at Harry who seemed like he didn't want to have to say it. What would everyone think when we told them this?

"We saw it from the snake's point of view," I said.

No one spoke for a moment and then Dumbledore jumped up from his seat, still avoiding us completely. He walked around and found the portrait he was looking for.

"You need to find someone to retrieve Arthur - make sure that he gets in the right hands," Dumbledore told him.

With only a simple nod, the man in the portrait disappeared into the background. Dumbledore walked quickly over to Fawkes the Phoenix and began whispering something to him before the bird disappeared. Once Fawkes was gone, the man in the portrait reappeared.

"They've found him Dumbledore," he said. "He's being taken to St. Mungo's now - he looks awful."

Dumbledore nodded and then turned his attention to Professor McGonagall.

"Minerva-you need to wake the other Weasley children," he told her. "Tell them that their father is in the hospital."

I looked over at Ron next to me and his eyes were wide and he was shaking slightly. He looked terrified and confused - though I couldn't blame him because I felt the same way. I gently took his hand and gave it a small squeeze.

"He's going to be okay," I said shakily.

Ron nodded, but I knew that it hadn't helped him all that much. To be honest, I hardly believed it myself. The only question that I wanted answered at the moment was how this had happened.

McGonagall, doing as she was told, quickly left the room to find everyone else to tell them what had happened. Dumbledore continued to pace around in front of us without even glancing up for a moment.

"Phineas," Dumbledore said suddenly as he looked up at the portrait of a familiar looking man. "I need you to visit your other portrait to give a message to Sirius."

"I'm not so sure that I am up to it," he said stiffly.

"I need you to tell him that Arthur Weasley has been injured," Dumbledore said without paying attention to his comment. "His wife and children are coming there along with Harry and Emily Potter."

"Okay, I'll try," Phineas sighed. "I don't even know if the portrait is still there..."

"It will be," Dumbledore said.

Once Phineas disappeared in his portrait we only had to wait a couple more minutes for Professor McGonagall to return with the rest of the Weasleys. When they got in there, Ginny was the first to say anything.

"Is our dad all right?" she asked Harry. "They're saying that you saw him get hurt."

"He's at St. Mungo's now," Harry told her.

"Your father was injured while doing work for the Order of the Phoenix," Dumbledore said. "He is being looked after now and he should be doing better shortly. You all are going to be going to Sirius's house where your mother will be waiting for you.

"Did you see it to?" George asked with a shaken look.

I nodded, unable to look him in the eye. I could only imagine what he was thinking right now - would he think that it was my fault? What if he thinks I could have stopped it? But what sickened me the most was that this could have been my fault. I was the one that had done it. Were Harry and I going to be blamed for this?

I wouldn't know if he actually thought about this because his immediate reaction was to pull me over towards him and hold me in a small embrace for a moment. He looked me in the eyes and I wanted to cry because of the pain that I could see in his eyes. This was all of my fault - I was hurting him and there wasn't anything I could do about it.

"You are all experienced with using a Portkey I assume," Dumbledore said.

We all nodded and Dumbledore went to say something else but stopped when a feather suddenly burst out of thin air and fell down gently onto his desk.

"That's from Fawkes," Dumbledore murmured. "Dolores must have noticed that you all are out of your beds—Minerva, you need to stop her— make sure she doesn't get here before we're gone."

McGonagall nodded in understanding and quickly walked out of the door. Dumbledore motioned for all of us to come around his desk and he pointed to a black kettle that was setting there - it was the Portkey that would lead to Sirius's house.

"On three - ready?" he said.

We all put our hands out and touched one part of the kettle.

"One...two..." he said.

He looked up at all of us and met my eyes for the first time this night. I let out a small gasp as my scar burned terribly. For a moment, it took everything in my power to not jump across the desk and attack the old man - I wanted to kill him. Hatred was coursing through my veins.

"Three!" Dumbledore said after a second.

As I felt myself spinning up into the air, I became horrified at what had just happened. I had just wanted to kill Dumbledore—but why? It dawned on me suddenly that he must have known that this would happen and that was why he had been avoiding Harry and me. But how could he have guessed this? How could he have guessed that we were turning into a couple of monsters?

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Sunday!**

**Okay, so I've been getting questions about Emily's relationship with George and if she's going to stay with him until the end of the series. To be honest, I'm not really sure - what do you all think? Do you want her to stay with George? Just so you know, if it turns out as a no then she'll probably end up with Neville in the end - but if not then I will be happy to keep her with George! Jus post in your comment what you think should happen.**

**Another thing, I've also been questioned with who Harry is going to end up with. To be honest, I really would prefer him to not end up with Ginny - I never exactly liked that pairing in the book. So maybe he could stick with Cho? Tell me what you think about that.**

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	29. Was It Our Fault After All?

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 29**

When we stopped spinning, I found myself sitting on the floor of Sirius's kitchen in the basement of his home. The first thing I noticed was Sirius shoving Kreacher out of the door and cursing under his breath as he did at. Once we had all gotten back to our feet, Sirius walked directly over to Harry and me. He gave us both a big hug and I felt like I never wanted to let go.

"How are you doing?" he asked me while Harry helped Ginny stand up.

"I've been better..." I murmured.

Once everyone was standing up, Sirius looked at us all in question. Obviously he had been informed that Mr. Weasley had been injured, but I highly doubt that he had any knowledge of how exactly anyone had figured out about it that quickly considering no one was with Mr. Weasley. He was wondering what we had to do with any of this.

"Would anyone care to explain what is going on?" he asked.

Sirius looked from Harry to me with a raised eyebrow as of expecting us to start explaining right away. For some reason I found it difficult to find the right words to speak because I as afraid of what Sirius would think. Would he have the same response that Dumbledore had or would be think that we were demented?

"What exactly did you two see?" Fred asked.

Harry and I looked at one another and gulped. Feeling panicked, I immediately looked at the floor so I wouldn't have to see their faces when we told them what had really happened and how we had found out about it.

"Well...we saw Mr. Weasley get attacked in our sleep..." I said slowly.

"So...like a dream?" Sirius suggested.

"Sort of..." I said quietly. "But it was more of a vision..."

I trailed off and Harry squeezed onto my hand and told the rest of the story for me. I didn't dare look up at anyone in fear of what they might be thinking. Once he was finished telling the story of what happened we all stood in silence for a moment.

"We need to go to St. Mungo's," Fred insisted as he began to walk out of the room.

In one swift movement Sirius stepped in front of the door and blocked it so that neither Fred nor George could get out of it. Ginny wasn't far behind them and they were all giving our godfather a look of pure confusion and irritation.

"What are you doing?" George asked. "Get out of the way."

"No, you all cannot go," Sirius said. "It would raise question."

"What does it matter?" Fred yelled. "That's our father and he could be dead for all we know! Now move!"

"NO!" Sirius shouted as Fred began to push him out of the way.

"Why can't we go?" George asked irritably. "What questions could it possibly raise - we're going to the hospital to visit our father - what's odd about that?"

"Because you aren't supposed to know," Sirius said while closing his eyes. "They don't know that Harry and Emily have seen it and it's already risky enough considering where he was in the first place - he was there for the Order - "

"We don't care!" George yelled. "We need to go - "

"This is far more than you could understand!" Sirius shouted. "It's too dangerous - "

"What would you know about dangerous?" Fred spat. "You can't even leave the house anymore - what would you know?"

It was as if Fred had smacked him in the face. Sirius had gone really pale and everyone in the room stood in silence and only stared at one another. I half expected a fight to break out, but no one was moving a muscle.

"Listen, we all need to calm down," Sirius said. "I'm sure that you're mother has just gotten word from the hospital and she will surely send a message once she has figured everything out herself."

Ginny let out a large sigh and then sat down in one of the chairs sitting nearby. Although Fred and George seemed to be ready to start yelling again, they listened and took a seat next to one another at the table. Sirius let out a sigh and then walked over to get some drinks prepared while Harry and I took a seat.

"Here..." Sirius said as he flicked his wand and sent a Butterbeer in front of everyone.

We sat in silence for a while until some of the others began to fall to sleep waiting for some sort of message. Once nearly everyone was out of it other than Harry, Sirius, and me we began to talk quietly.

"How did you know that it was real...?" Sirius asked in a whisper.

"We could just tell..." I murmured as I folded my arms onto the table and laid my head into them. "It wasn't like a normal dream...it was too real."

Harry laid his head down as well and I glanced over at him and saw the guilt in his eyes. He was thinking along the same lines that I was - this was our fault. We didn't know how it was possible, but it somehow felt like we had been the snake that had attacked him.

"How have you been doing here Sirius?" I asked while trying to take my mind off of the image of us having fangs.

"Oh, it's been loads of joy," Sirius said sarcastically. "Kreacher and I have become the best of friends."

"That bad, huh?" I asked with a short laugh.

"I miss having everyone around," he sighed. "It gets quiet around here...well, I guess not too quiet with my mother screaming every five minutes."

"We're going to make sure to be here as long as we can this summer," I promised him. "I'm sure that the Dursleys wouldn't mind us living here."

"I would love that," Sirius with a small smile on his face - it's amazing how rare those had become lately. "It would nice to be able to see you two every day."

I nodded and felt even more sympathy for him then I had in a while. He hadn't actually complained much out loud, but I knew how much it was bothering him that he couldn't get out of this house at all anymore. He missed his old life when he could roam the streets without anyone noticing him and he was just the average wizard. He missed my parents. He missed us...

"Do you remember when you used to visit me every day in the Shrieking Shack?" he asked with a smile.

"Yeah, it was quite dangerous then," I said. "I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for that...but it was worth it."

"I miss that," he said. "I just wish that Dumbledore would let me stay there again - it isn't like anyone would find me."

"I'm not so sure," I said. "Umbridge seems like the type to check there."

"And I'm sure that Severus has already told her all about that spot anyway," he said irritably.

"No, I don't think he would," I said honestly. "I think he tries to avoid her as much as he can."

"Really," he said in surprise. "I would have thought that they would have been the best of friends."

"They hate each other," I said. "Umbridge is constantly following Snape around to make sure that he isn't going out of line."

"Well I'm glad that he's not having a good year either," he said. "It brightens my day."

"He isn't the only one having a bad year," I said. "She's making it hell for everyone."

"Has she found out about that group of yours?" he asked.

"Not that we know of," I said.

"I think that is really good of you to be doing," Sirius said. "Shows that you all are still willing to put up a fight for what you should rightfully have."

"You just like that we're breaking the rules," I laughed.

"That's an added bonus," he smirked.

"Snape knows about the group too," I said.

"And he hasn't said anything?" he asked in surprise. "Wait - how did he figure out about it?"

"Well, he doesn't know exactly what we're doing," I explained. "But he knows that we're doing something we aren't supposed to be and that it involves rebelling against Umbridge."

"And he hasn't gone running off to someone to stop it?" he asked.

"No," I shrugged. "I think he likes that we're doing this."

"Wow," he said while sitting back in his chair. "He's changed a bit since we were in school."

Just before I had a chance to say anything there was an enormous flame that erupted from above us. Everyone that was dozing off suddenly jumped up and looked up to watch a roll of parchment fall to the ground.

"Fawkes - it must be Dumbledore," Sirius said.

"But that isn't his handwriting," I said as I leaned over Sirius's shoulder to get a look at the parchment in his hand.

"It's your mother's," Sirius said as he tossed the letter over for George to read.

"Dad is still alive," George read allowed. "I am setting out for St. Mungo's now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum."

"Still alive?" Fred said in a hoarse voice. "Does that mean that...?"

He couldn't finish his sentence as he buried his face into his hands. George couldn't utter a word and Ron and Ginny were speechless as well. All of them walked over and sat next to each other so that they could grieve together as a family. I wanted more than anything to say something to help ease their pain, but I knew that it wasn't the right time for us to say anything. As much as we thought we were in this family, we knew that we weren't really.

For the remainder of the night we all remained very quiet. After an hour or so Sirius suggested that we all move into the sitting room and that was the only comment that was made for a long time. Once we got into the sitting room George pulled me over to the couch to sit with him and Fred. He held me close to him when we sat down and I had to do everything in my power to not cry over the pain that I could see in all of their eyes - especially George.

"I love you," he whispered quietly to me in a choked way.

"I love you too," I whispered back as I hugged onto his side and leaned my head against his shoulder.

It wasn't until it was nearly 5:30 in the morning that Mrs. Weasley came in through the front door. When she did, everyone jumped up and looked at her and waited for some sort of answer. She looked very pale and panicked in the face which led me to believe the worst until she managed to let out a few words.

"He's all right," she said.

Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny all raced over to her and they all hugged each other tightly. Sirius, Harry, and I all looked relieved, but substantially awkward around this saddened family. After they all let go of one another, not much else was said before we were all sent to sleep by Mrs. Weasley who insisted that we get as much rest as we could so that we could go visit Mr. Weasley in the hospital later that day.

Harry gave me a meaningful look just before we went off into our rooms - neither of us were going to be sleeping that night. There was no way that I would allow myself and I knew that Harry felt the same. We weren't going to risk having to see the same image that we had when we had last gone to sleep the night before - what if we attacked someone else?

So after I said goodnight to everyone and laid down, I kept my eyes open and I made sure that I wouldn't get too comfortable. Once I was sure that Ginny had fallen asleep, I stepped out of my bed and walked quietly out into the hallway and down the stairs to the sitting room where I found Kreacher lurking nearby.

"Filthy half-bloods...walking around my mistress's home," Kreacher muttered under his breath. "If she only knew what her son was allowing in her noble home..."

"Now I see where Sirius's lovely mood is coming from," I said sarcastically. "It must be so nice to have such good company like you Kreacher."

He mumbled something else, but I wasn't able to hear it because he had already walked into the other room where I was sure that he was cursing all of our names for being in the home that he loved so very much. I wondered for a moment if he had always been this miserable and came to the conclusion that he must have been a little bit better when Sirius's mother had been around.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

I glanced over and found Sirius standing in the hallway looking at me with a raised eyebrow. In his hand I saw a small bit of rolled parchment that he was twirling around in his fingers.

"I could say the same to you," I said.

"Well, I would have been sleeping if it wasn't for this owl that kept hitting my window," Sirius said. "I believe that this is for you."

He held out the letter and I took it from him with a raised eyebrow. I wasn't even aware that Hoot had known where Sirius's house was. Then again he had been here before - but who had sent me a letter? I unrolled it and read through it quickly.

_Emily,_

Dumbledore informed me of the events that occurred last night and I am sending a letter only to make sure that you are in a proper state of mind. I know you well enough to know that you are probably blaming yourself for this incident, but I want you to know that this was beyond your control and there wasn't any stopping it. Please take this into consideration and be happy that you were able to inform someone to get help at the proper time.

Love, Snape

"I don't like that he sends you letters," Sirius said in disgust. "I think he's forgetting that you aren't - "

"My mother?" I suggested. "Sort of like when you forget that Harry isn't my father."

Sirius stared at me for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders.

"Fair enough," he said as he sat down on a couch.

"Wait a minute - how did you know who this was from?" I asked as I sat on the couch across from him. "I never told you who it was. Are you going through my mail?"

"I was only curious about who had sent a letter to a house that no one is supposed to know about," Sirius said innocently. "That's all. It's not very common that I have letters delivered here."

I let out a small laugh before I went around and found some parchment and a quill so that I could write a message back to him so he wouldn't go all mother-hen on me. Sirius seemed like he wanted to read what I was writing, but I made sure that he couldn't see it because I know that the small fact that I was speaking to a man that he had hated his whole life would irritate him.

_Severus,_

You know me well, but obviously not well enough if you are under the impression that I'm just going to be brushing this event off of my shoulders like nothing ever happened. Although I thank you for your kind words of advise, I'm not so sure where you get the idea that there isn't a way that this could be our fault when no one else is certain of this at the moment. There are other things that I would rather not disclose in this letter that give me these sort of thoughts.

Love, Emily

I rolled it up and went upstairs to find Hoot perched on Sirius's windowsill. I pet him and handed him a small treat before handing him the letter in my hands to send him back to Hogwarts to deliver it to the concerned professor. Once I was finished, I made my way back down the stairs where I found Mrs. Weasley talking to Sirius.

"You're up awfully early Emily," Mrs. Weasley said when she saw me. "Maybe you should - "

"Molly, I don't think that she ever went to sleep," Sirius said.

"Oh..." Mrs. Weasley said looking a bit concerned. "Sirius, would you mind going to start some tea?"

"Sure," Sirius said.

Once he left the room, Mrs. Weasley walked directly over to me and put her arms around me and held me in a tight embrace. For a moment I wanted to cry, but I held back because I knew that this would make her upset if I did.

"Are you all right Emily?" she asked me once she let me go.

"I suppose so," I said without looking her in the eye.

She nodded but had the same concerned-mother look on her face that told me that she knew that everything wasn't actually okay with me.

"Did you see...everything?" she asked hesitantly.

I nodded and I didn't dare look at her. I wasn't sure what conclusions that she had come up with already about what we had seen, but I was afraid that she would know that this could be our fault.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Sorry for what?" she asked with concern. "You saved Arthur's life dear, you must have realized that."

"Right," I said trying to put on a smile. "I'm just happy that he is okay."

"Let's go get some tea," she said. "Maybe that will help wake us all up."

It was at least one hour later when Harry came down into the kitchen. Judging by the bags under his eyes, I knew that he slept about as much as I had. Mrs. Weasley had the same reaction towards him that she had with me and she seemed eternally grateful towards us both. If she only knew...

Harry and I hadn't actually discussed what had happened earlier that day when we had felt the sudden urge to murder our headmaster. He hadn't actually told me that he had felt the same way that I had, but he didn't need to. It was one of those things that I just knew that we had shared. We didn't speak about it at all until Mrs. Weasley said that she would be going to use the bathroom and see if anyone else was awake - we figured that it would give us enough time to talk to Sirius.

"Sirius," Harry said. "I think that we need to talk to you about something."

Harry looked at me and I nodded in agreement. We needed to see what someone else's reaction would be to this because we both knew that we were thinking the same thing and that it was most likely our own fault that Mr. Weasley had been attacked.

We told every detail of the story as fast as we could to make sure we could talk about it before Mrs. Weasley returned from what she was doing. Sirius didn't say a word until we finished telling him about us wanting to attack our headmaster.

"Just before we came here on Portkey," I said. "We both had the same feeling of hatred towards Dumbledore when he looked us in the eye."

"We both wanted to attack him Sirius," Harry said. "Does that mean that - "

"I'm sure that it was just the aftermath of the dream that you both had," Sirius said. "You shouldn't be thinking that much into it."

"But it wasn't like that," I said quickly. "The feeling just came out of nowhere - it was the same feeling that I had when I was the snake attacking Mr. Weasley."

Sirius closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Listen to me - both of you," he said. "The fact that you are both concerned about this proves that this was just a freak occurrence. You are not bad people, do you understand?"

"Yes, but - " Harry started.

"But nothing," Sirius said. "You two both need to go to sleep. I'm sure that is what is going on right now. You are both thinking too much into this because of your lack of sleep."

We were both about to object when Mrs. Weasley walked back into the room with a smile on her face. Behind her I saw Ginny and Ron following her and they quickly found a seat at the table and drank some tea. This marked the end of the discussion that we had with Sirius - not that he would have allowed us to continue anyway.

Once everyone woke up, we all decided that we would go to St. Mungo's when Mad-Eye and Tonks arrived to escort us there. Sirius seemed to be a little bit bummed because he couldn't go with us and was going to have to stay home alone with Kreacher again.

"We won't be there too long Sirius," I told him.

"Yeah, yeah..." he muttered. "Tell Arthur hi for me."

"I will," I smiled and hugged him. "Try not to mope around to much."

"Don't tell me what to do," he smirked.

Tonks and Mad-Eye showed up shortly after everyone finished eating lunch and I got the impression that they would be sticking out a lot when we went out into the public. Mad-Eye was attempting to hide his fake eye from view with a large, ridiculous looking hat that was sitting sideways on his head so it would cover his eye. Tonks was wearing incredibly bright clothing that went along with her short, bright link hair.

"So I hear that it was the two of you that told everyone about the attack," Tonks said looking impressed. "Do you think that the two of you could be Seers by any chance?"

"No," Harry said looking a little disgusted by the comment.

"Trust me," I laughed as I thought of Professor Trelawney. "We definitely aren't Seers."

"Just a thought," she shrugged. "But I guess that it wouldn't really make all that much sense considering you saw what was happening in the present instead of the future."

Mad-Eye went around trying to round up all of the people that were going as Tonks stood awkwardly next to me while Harry went to talk to Sirius.

"So I hear that you are our godmother," I said.

"That's right," she said proudly.

"Why didn't you say anything before?" I asked her.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I guess I thought it would be better if we knew each other a little bit better. And to be honest, I didn't know if you two would like the idea."

"Why wouldn't we?" I asked her. "I'm sure that our parents knew what they were doing when they gave you the job."

"Thanks," she smiled.

"Okay enough of that," Mad-Eye growled as he walked by. "Let's go already."

We both laughed and everyone walked out of the door. You could always count on Mad-Eye to bring everyone back to reality.

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Wednesday. By the way, I didn't get a chance to look over this for mistakes - so just tell me if you see any and I'll fix it as fast as I can! (thanks!)**

**So I got a lot of reviews for the last chapter in regards to whether or not Emily and George would stay together and I'm sure that if you all look back at what people were saying then you will be able to determine for yourself what is going to happen in the end.**

**I also got some responses for Harry and I would like to propose an idea - tell me what you think about. So you all, for the most part, seemed to be opposed to the idea of Cho and Harry (I wasn't exactly thrilled about that choice either) and some of you seemed to be content with keeping Harry with Ginny. But I was given a suggestion that I find pretty interesting and I'm going to share with you what I am thinking. What would you all think of Harry and an OC? I was thinking of either doing that or just keeping him with Ginny in the end, but having their relationship develop slower than it did in the book (my reasoning for that being that I thought their relationship was a bit rushed) - tell me your thoughts in a review.**

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	30. Thoughts Are Confirmed

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 30**

It wasn't a great amount of time before we ended up standing outside of the same rundown building with a dummy in the window that I had gone through during the summer break. Harry seemed to be the only one that was generally surprised that Tonks was talking to the misshapen dummy and even more so when the dummy nodded its head.

"Okay, go on through," Mad-Eye demanded once everything had been set up.

"We just walk through?" Harry whispered to me.

"Yes, it's sort of like the entrance to Platform 9 3/4," I said. "Except it's leading to a hospital instead."

"Right," he said.

He gave me a skeptical look as we stepped through the seemingly solid building and soon enough we found ourselves standing in the busy lobby of St. Mungo's. Mrs. Weasley walked right up to the counter while Harry and I stood a small distance back as we looked around at all of the people in the area.

"Why don't they have this in Diagon Alley?" Harry asked me.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Maybe they ran out of room."

Fred and George walked up behind us and I noticed that they looked more like themselves now than they had earlier. They looked less serious somehow - probably the knowledge that their father was no longer in risk of death.

"It wouldn't fit Underground," George told us. "It's a rather large building."

"Do you remember when we had to come here after our first year at Hogwarts?" Fred asked while nudging his twin brother.

"Good times..." George sighed as he thought back.

"Wait - why did you have to come here?" Harry asked.

"Just a mishap," George shrugged. "The only downside of pranking people - our prank backfired on us and we ended up growing a couple of extra body parts."

"I still think that they didn't rid of my eye that I had on my neck," Fred said while rubbing his neck. "Every now and then I swear that I can see out of it..."

"Keep telling yourself that Fred," George laughed.

Mrs. Weasley rushed back over to all of us and motioned for us to follow her. Unlike my last visit to Sr. Mungo's, we only had to walk up one set of stairs to find where Mr. Weasley was now set. Apparently he had been moved there shortly after he had arrived at the hospital. When we got to the door marked "Dangerous Bites," we all stopped outside for a moment.

"I suppose we ought to stay out here for a bit," Tonks said to Mad-Eye. "The family should see him first."

Mad-Eye grunted in approval and stepped off to the side with Tonks. Harry and I shot an awkward glance at one another and decided that it was best for us to join the two of them while the Weasleys went in and saw their father/husband. They all began to walk in and when Mrs. Weasley saw the two of us she grabbed us and pulled us into the room.

"Don't be silly," she smiled. "Arthur wants to see the two of you to thank you for what you did."

"Er - okay," Harry said awkwardly.

The last thing that we could ever want for what happened was his thanks. If anything we deserved to be taken away from everyone so they couldn't get hurt. When we walked into the room we discovered that he wasn't the only one in there - there were two others laying in beds that we passed before we made it to Mr. Weasley who was heavily bandaged and beaming at all of us.

"Are you feeling any better?" Mrs. Weasley asked as she kissed him on the forehead.

"I'm doing just fine," he said cheerfully. "I just wish that they would let me go home already."

Ginny bent down and hugged her father and everyone looked at the bandages with concern. There was no way that they would allow him to go home in this condition.

"Why can't they take the bandages off?" George asked.

"Well, every time they do the bites start bleeding again," he said nonchalantly. "It's a real pain if you ask me. Apparently that snake's venom makes sure that the wounds won't close themselves."

"There isn't any sort of antidote?" Fred asked.

"They're working on one now," Mr. Weasley said. "Until then I have to drink a Blood Replenishing potion every hour."

"That's awful," Ginny said.

Mr. Weasley then went on ranting about some man selling these biting doorknobs to Muggles and now they were in St. Mungo's. I briefly wondered how they were going to keep that quiet, but I figured that they would just hit the Muggles with a memory charm before they left so they wouldn't remember anything.

"So what were you doing there really?" Fred asked out of nowhere.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"I mean..." Fred lowered his voice. "You were undercover, right? So what were you doing?"

"What kind of question is that to ask your father?" Mrs. Weasley snapped. "He's recovering - leave him be."

"It's not your business Fred," Mr. Weasley said. "It's strictly our business - none of you need to be worrying yourselves about it."

"We are all wondering - " George started.

"Enough," Mrs. Weasley demanded. "Now Tonks and Mad-Eye are in the hallway waiting to visit - you all go out for a moment and let us talk."

She nearly shoved us all out of the room just before Mad-Eye and Tonks walked in. Knowing that they would be talking about business with the Order, we all crowded around the door and attempted to press out ears to it.

"How about we use these?" George asked.

We all turned around and found him holding up the flesh colored strings that we all knew to be Extendable Ears. He handed each of us one and we stuck them in our ears as the other end squirmed underneath the door.

"Do you think that Dumbledore has been waiting for them to be seeing things like this?" I heard Mrs. Weasley say.

"Probably," Mad-Eye grunted. "Those two kids are a whole different sort."

"All I'm saying is that it's worrying Dumbledore," Mrs. Weasley said. "And it should be worrying us too - even though what they saw was a blessing you have to wonder what's going on."

"Molly, we already know what's going on," Tonks said. "Or at least we have a really good idea."

"You-Know-Who must be possessing the two of them," Mad-Eye said. "I don't know how and I don't even know if he knows he's doing it - but something isn't right. Seeing through the eyes of You-Know-Who's snake can never be a good sign."

I wasn't breathing. They were all saying exactly what Harry and I had been thinking for the longest time. I threw the Extendable Ear out of my head like it was something nasty and walked away without even looking at the others. I heard blood pounding in my ears and everything around me seemed to go blurred. Every sound around me became louder and I began to hyperventilate. It was true - all of it. Everything that we had been thinking had come true.

I found myself walking incredibly fast to the point that I was nearly running around every corner and flying up staircases until I ran into a wall. I pressed my back against it and went to the ground in a panic. I wrapped my arms around my knees and put my head down and attempted to control my ragged breathing.

"Are you all right?"

My head jerked up and I saw a woman standing in front of me in a Healer's outfit. I stood up quickly and nodded my head before she started walking away. She continued to glance back a few times before the disappeared around the corridor.

I was still breathing heavy and my head felt like it was going to explode, but I had to control myself so I wouldn't have another meltdown and end up admitted into the hospital myself. Now I had to figure out where I was. I turned around and walked a few feet before I went into another corridor and found a door marked "Long-Term Residence." I pushed the door lightly and found myself standing in the same room that I had during the summer.

How had I made it all the way over here?

Laying fast asleep in the bed directly in front of me was Gilderoy Lockhart. He looked the same as he had the last time I has seen him, but I knew that he was no longer the same in the mind although his apparent love for himself was coming back judging by the man posters of his face that he had around his bed.

At the far end of the room I found Frank and Alice Longbottom. They looked the same as they had when I had seen them with Neville. Just as lost and just as helpless. Before I could stop myself I walked over to them and pulled up a chair so that I could sit in between them. Although Alice didn't seem to pay me any mind, Frank glanced over at me with a dazed look about him.

"Hi," I said with a weak smile.

He just looked at me like I hadn't said anything. After a moment he looked curiously at me. A part of me wondered if he recognized me at all, but I just brushed that thought off knowing that there wasn't any reason that he would remember me.

After a moment or two he looked over at the wall at an odd looking crack in the wall and seemed to be distracted by that long enough for me to look over at Alice. She noticed me watching her after a few seconds and looked back at me. She tilted her head off to the side in wonder and then held her hand out hesitantly.

I slowly extended my arm and took her hand. When I did she gave me the most curious look and furrowed her eyebrows as if wondering who this strange girl was that was holding onto her hand.

I felt a small tear roll down my face as I thought of what this woman went through to get to the state she is now. A part of me wondered which of the families got the worse end of the stick - the Potters or the Longbottoms. Was their fate worse than death?

All of my thoughts were interrupted when the door burst open. I jumped from surprise and Alice let go of my hand. The Healer at the door looked just as surprised to see me and even seemed hesitant to walk into the room.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't realize that there were visitors."

"Oh, it's fine," I said with a small smile.

"I'm going to need to see them soon," she said. "I'm sorry, but I think you might need to wrap this up."

"I understand," I nodded.

She gave me an apologetic smile and walked back out of the door. I knew that she would be back soon expecting me to have already made my exit. I stood up and set my chair back up against the wall that it had been up against when I found it before I turned around to face them again.

They were both staring at me with the same blank stare. Their eyes were empty but they seemed to be slightly curious at the same time. It was saddening to look at them and realize how much they had lost, but something told me that they would have believed it was for a good cause. I imagine that my parents would have felt the same way...

Either way it was still upsetting knowing that things could have been so different for them. They could have led a normal life and they could have known who their son was. Everything could have been different if it wasn't for Voldemort.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered to them. "But we're going to stop him. We're going to make sure that he can't keep doing this to people."

I know they didn't understand me, but it didn't matter. All that was important was that I made a promise to them that I was determined to keep. We had to put up a fight against Voldemort this time to make sure that history wouldn't repeat itself. We had to avenge the people that we loved.

When I walked out of the room I made my way back to the lobby. When I made it there I saw George standing with his mother and they were both looking around the semi-crowded lobby for something or someone. When George caught my eye he suddenly looked relieved.

"There she is!" he called.

He walked quickly over towards me and put his arms around me in a tight embrace. When he spoke to me he made sure that he was quiet enough so his approaching mother wouldn't hear him.

"Are you okay babe?" he asked me.

"I'm fine," I said. "I just needed to get away for a minute."

Mrs. Weasley got temporarily distracted when Fred ran into her after being pushed by a man that was growing several arms out of his back. They stumbled back and fell to the ground but the man held out his arms and attempted to help them back up.

"I think Harry did the same thing," he said as he backed out of the hug and held onto my hands. "But he didn't get as far as you did."

"It's a lot to take in," I sighed and continued in almost a whisper. "But we knew it all along anyway. It's just different when you know that everyone else knew too."

"I'm sorry that I let you listen," he said.

"Like you could have stopped me," I chuckled.

"That's a good point," he smiled.

After we got back to Sirius's house I tried to do my very best to avoid everyone in the house except for Harry. We both sat in his room for the most part and tried to sort out what was going on. There wasn't really that much to talk about that we hadn't already talked about though. The only thing that the discussion in St. Mungo's did was confirm our thoughts about what Voldemort's plans for us.

We found that the following day proved to be difficult to keep ourselves hidden because George was consistently checking up on me because my antisocial habits were starting to worry him. I tried to convince him that I was only tired, but he wasn't buying it. Then again it wasn't all that convincing considering we were in Buckbeak's room instead of our bedrooms. Once Hermione got to the house later that day she seemed to have made it a goal to get us around everyone else.

"At least come into Ron's room for sandwiches," she said to us. "You two can't hide forever."

I didn't want to tell her that we had already found a fool proof way of escaping from everything, so I just kept my mouth shut. We had already come up with a plan to return to the Dursleys house where we knew that there weren't any withes and wizards so that no one could find us. Maybe then everyone could be safe from us. Obviously we didn't go through with it, but it was still considered.

"Oh, look who decided to show their faces," Ginny laughed when she saw us.

Harry and I only groaned and took a seat on the floor. Ron handed over the plate of sandwiches, but we both shook our heads - there was no way that we could eat right now.

"Seriously, you two need to start coming around everyone again," Ron said. "Mum's been complaining but it's nothing compared to George. Says that he never sees his girlfriend anymore and I can't stand it any longer."

"We're not hiding from anyone," Harry said. "We're just - "

"Don't even try it Harry," Ginny laughed.

"Now they already told me about what you two overheard in the Extendable Ears the other day," Hermione said. "Now you haven't said anything since then - "

"Why bother?" I scoffed. "It's not like anyone is going to be able to say anything - "

"And why not?" Ginny asked sounding defensive. "You know, I would have thought that you two would have come to me. I was possessed by You-Know-Who in case you've forgotten - I could help you."

I drew a blank and looked at Harry. Why hadn't we thought of this before? We should have said something to her ages ago knowing this. I suppose that we had just forgotten about it with everything that had been going on lately.

"So...what have you been thinking?" Harry asked. "Do you think we're being possessed?"

"Have you gone long moments without realizing what you've been doing?" she asked.

We hesitated for a moment and then answered at once.

"No," we said.

"Then I don't think he's ever possessed you," she said simply. "When he did that to me I would often wake up in a place that I never remembered going to."

"How do you know that there aren't other ways of possessing someone?" I asked. "What if Voldemort can transport us both over to where he was - we were the snake after all."

"You cannot Apparate from Hogwarts," Hermione insisted. "How many times must I say this? Besides Emily, you were in your bed the entire time - I saw you."

"You too mate," Ron said to Harry. "You were both in your beds."

"Not to mention that you were both the same snake," Ginny pointed out. "I'm sure that you were just seeing things through the snakes mind."

It all made sense after all - we were both the same snake and we never left our beds. Maybe we were just seeing into its mind like before, but why did we see through his snake's mind and not Voldemort's himself? Although not all the pieces were perfect, it all made sense after all even though I still didn't like the thought of seeing anything from the mind of Voldemort or his snake. The only comforting thought that came to my mind was that we weren't the weapon that Voldemort was searching for after all.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope you liked it! Sorry that the chapter wasn't up when I said it would be, but I got caught up in signing up for SATs and college searches. The next chapter should be up around Sunday! Oh and just tell me if you see any mistakes that I missed then just leave a message in the comments and I'll have it fixed as soon as I can.**

**So a lot of people have commented about the Harry/Ginny or the Harry/OC situation and I'm pretty sure that the majority of the people are preferring Harry/Ginny. Although I guess it isn't that big of a deal, you all do realize that if those two end up together and Emily/George happens then they are all going to be marrying into the same family, right? Just give me your thoughts on that (I hope that wasn't too confusing).**

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	31. Christmas Cheer

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 31**

"So when exactly is your anniversary with George?" Hermione asked as she finished wrapping up her gift to Harry.

"Technically speaking it's on Christmas because he asked me early in the morning during the Yule Ball," I said.

"So do you know what you're going to do for it?" she asked.

"Not a clue," I said nervously. "I've been trying to think of something for ages, but nothing has come to mind."

"I can't believe it's been a year already," Ginny said in disbelief as she cut a ribbon to put on her father's gift.

"Me either," I said.

"But I don't think you should do anything huge," Ginny suggested. "George is a simple guy."

"But one year is a big deal," Hermione said.

"Yes, but it's also Christmas and your going to be surrounded by everyone," Ginny pointed out.

"It's going to be so romantic," I said sarcastically.

I finished wrapping up a cook book for Mrs. Weasley and laid it with the rest of the stack of Christmas gifts. This year I got a necklace for Hermione that has a Gryffindor symbol on it, a "Quick Tips for Quidditch" book for Ron, a framed picture of Harry and me for Sirius along with a short letter to go along with it, a bracelet with a Snitch for Ginny, and so many more gifts for everyone else. When I had gone shopping for them I never thought I would be able to get out because of how many people I had to buy for. For Harry I made a hand-made card along with a scarf that I made for him while learning to knit with Hermione.

"I already know what George is doing for you," Ginny said in a sing-song voice.

Hermione and I stopped in our tracks and turned on her.

"What?" Hermione asked before I had a chance to.

"I don't want to spoil it," Ginny said. "But you're going to love it Emily - I know it."

"Great, now I feel guilty for not having an idea yet," I mumbled.

"Don't worry to much about it," Ginny said. "George isn't very materialistic anyway."

"I know," I sighed. "But I feel like I should at least do something for our anniversary."

"Just try to think of something simple that has a lot of meaning to it," Hermione suggested.

Suddenly a thought popped into my mind. It wasn't extraordinary, but I think that he might like that.

"What about a scrapbook?" I said. "One that had all sorts of pictures and things that have happened since we've known each other. I guess it would be more of a sentimental thing - what do you think?"

"I think he would like it," Ginny said.

"Me too," Hermione smiled. "It's sweet."

Once I finished wrapping all of the gifts for everyone else, I set out to Diagon Alley with Hermione to get the supplies to make the scrapbook. Of course we had to wait for Mad-Eye and Tonks to arrive before we were allowed to go anywhere. By the time we made it back home it was nearly dark and I set to work immediately. I gathered as many pictures as I could and got to creating the book. When I was halfway finished with it Harry came into the room.

"There you are," he said as he sat next to me. "Sirius has been asking where you were."

"I'm just making something," I said. "It was sort of a last minute thing."

"Can I see?" he asked.

I nodded my head and handed him what I had made so far. He flipped to the front of the book and found a a picture of us all standing in front of the Hogwarts Express before our third year. We hadn't known the picture was being taken so we were just standing around talking to one another.

"Where did you get this one?" he asked.

"Mrs. Weasley gave it to me when she heard about what I was doing," I smiled. "She thought that it would be a nice touch."

He smiled and flipped through some more of the pages. He stopped when he saw a picture of George and I at the Yule Ball. It was taken not long after he had asked me to be his girlfriend - we both were looking at each other and looked very happy to be where we were.

"I like this one," he said. "You looked very pretty that day..."

"Thank you," I smiled.

He flipped through a few more pages before he reached the end and then handed it back to me. He smiled at me and nodded his head in approval.

"I think he'll like it," he said.

"You think so?" I asked.

"Of course," he said. "I guess I should let you finish it."

"I hope that it'll never be finished," I smiled. "I just hope that we can keep adding to it."

"George is a good guy," Harry said. "I hope that I'll be able to find someone that makes me as happy as he makes you."

"Maybe you already have," I said.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "We'll just have to see."

He gave me a squeeze on the shoulder and stood up and walked out of the room. I smiled down at all of the pictures that I had lying in front of me and went to continue with what I had started. Once I had finished nearly everyone was either getting ready for bed or was already sleeping. I said goodnight to everyone and quickly laid down to sleep. I hadn't realized how tired I was until then.

Before I knew it I was standing in a small nursery. It seemed vaguely familiar and when I looked ahead I understood why. Sitting next to each other in a play pen I saw two children that appeared to be about a year old. They were both holding onto blocks and stacking them into a small formation. When it was complete, they both smiled happily at each other for their accomplishment. The two babies were Harry and me.

The only thing that seemed to be odd about us was that our foreheads appeared to be clear from the scars that we had for as long as we could remember. I turned my head to the side and watched them as they turned their heads to the door suddenly.

A woman burst into the room in a panic. She threw the door closed and locked it shut before she ran towards where to two children sat and kneeled over next to them. On our way there I noticed how familiar she looked to me - it was our mother. She started whispering something that I couldn't hear, but the children looked at her as if they understood what she had said.

Without warning the door to the room burst open and the woman jumped to her feet and stood in front of us and glared at the door with the fiercest expression - she wasn't going to back down for anything. Although I couldn't see who was at the door, I could tell who it was by the cold voice coming from him. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but it sounded threatening and angry by the tone of it. My mother stood her ground and shook her head and glanced quickly back at the two children behind her before turning back to the man in front of her. Her eyes widened as he shouted something. A blinding green light flashed before my eyes and I let out a scream that could be heard for miles.

"NOOOOOOOO!" I bellowed.

The light left her eyes and she fell to the ground in a mangled heap. Before I had a chance to turn to see the man that did this, I felt someone shaking my shoulders and my eyes suddenly flew open.

Sitting on my side was George and he looked three times paler than he usually did and his eyes were as big as saucers. I sat up next to him and looked around the room to find Hermione, Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, Harry, Fred and Sirius staring at me in horror.

"I'm sorry," I said in a choked voice.

"You don't have to apologize," George said in almost a whisper.

I nodded and looked down at my hands so I wouldn't have to look around at everyone's look of pity. Harry moved over and sat down next to me and held onto my hand and looked me in the eye with a curious look.

"Are you okay?" he asked me quietly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said.

"No you aren't," he said shaking his head. "What was it that you saw?"

"It was us...and our mother," I said slowly. "Just before she was killed."

Everyone in the room went quiet and Harry began to frown. He leaned in and gave me a small hug.

"It was just a nightmare," he whispered. "It'll be all right."

"I know," I said in a small voice. "It was just so real."

"Do you want someone to stay in here with you?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"I'll stay in here," George said.

Everyone's eyes darted over to him and I could see the extreme disapproval on Sirius and Harry's face.

"Not a chance," Sirius said.

"Oh come on - not like that," George said defensively. "What kind of person do you think I am?"

"You're a boy," Sirius said stiffly. "It doesn't matter what the situation is - I know what you are trying to do."

"She just saw her mother die again for crying out loud," George said. "Do you seriously think that this would be a good time to try anything."

"We would be in the room anyway," Ginny said. "And if he would seriously try to do anything while we were in here - don't even get me started. I would beat him within an inch of his life."

"Fine," Harry said suddenly.

"What - Harry?" Sirius said. "I thought you'd be on my side."

"I'm not sure if I trust George," Harry said eyeing him suspiciously. "But I trust Emily to stand her ground especially under these circumstances."

Sirius, Harry, and George all had a stare down while the rest of us just looked in between them all. You could practically cut the tension with a knife.

"Fine - but I'm watching you boy," Sirius said while pointing at George. "Try anything and it'll be the last thing that you ever do."

George's eyes grew slightly bigger as Sirius walked away from us and back into his room so that he could sleep. Everyone's eyes now went to Harry who had just turned to face George.

"Don't touch my sister," he said seriously. "If you even think about trying anything I will kill you - understood?"

"Completely," George said.

"Great," Harry smiled. "Sleep well."

Harry walked out of the room leaving only Mrs. Weasley and Fred at the door. Mrs. Weasley was giving the two of us a concerned look and I almost expected her to tell George to leave.

"Just don't start any funny business you too," she said nervously. "Goodnight."

She grabbed Fred by the arm and began to walk away. Just before Fred was out of sight, he had to throw at least one comment in.

"Try not to be too loud you two - OUCH!" he shouted.

I didn't have to see them to know that Mrs. Weasley had hit her son across the head for that comment. Hermione, Ginny, George, and I all rolled our eyes and laughed. Ginny stood up and shut the light off just as George and I laid down next to each other. He pulled me close to him and let out a sigh.

"Interested in starting some...what did she call it - funny business?" he asked with a smirk that I could just barely see.

"George I will hurt you if you keep talking," Hermione said.

"I'm not usually into that sort of thing, but whatever makes you happy," George said.

"Did you seriously just say that?" Ginny said as she smacked her hand to her face. "It amazes me that I'm even related to you."

"Just go to sleep George," I laughed.

"Yes ma'am," he smiled.

I closed my eyes and cuddled closely to George. The last thing that I felt was his kiss on my forehead before I fell into a much needed dreamless sleep.

* * *

The next morning I woke to Hermione shaking my shoulder.

"Emily - George - wake up," she said. "It's Christmas!"

I went to sit up but found myself stuck in George's arms that were wrapped all around me. He was still fast asleep without even noticing Hermione's attempt to wake up. He looked so peaceful in his sleep...but I guess that I should wake him up before Hermione yells at him. Not to mention that it would be nice to be able to get up myself.

"George, wake up," I said and gently nudged him.

"Huh - what happened?" he said incoherently.

"You're nearly suffocating me," I laughed as I tried to wiggle my way out of his grasp on me.

"Oh - sorry," he said as he let go of me and sat up himself.

He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. Ginny was already awake and halfway through her gifts and Hermione seemed to be doing the same. Judging by the jewelry that they were wearing they had already gotten to my gifts. I looked down at the pile in front of me and found a fairly big pile of it.

"Fred told us to tell you that your gifts are in his room," Ginny said to George.

"Okay," he said while he began to stand up. "Happy anniversary babe."

He smiled and leaned down and kissed me. I heard footsteps coming towards the door just as we pulled apart and there was a gagging noise.

"Get a room mate," Fred said.

"We had one until you came along," I laughed.

"Thanks for your gift by the way," Fred told me.

"What did you get him?" George asked.

"I just made him a hat," I shrugged. "I figured that he had everything else."

"You're right," Fred smiled.

George pulled me up so that I was standing and I hugged him around the waist.

"Happy anniversary love," I smiled.

"Is that today?" Fred asked.

"Don't act like you don't know," George rolled his eyes and laughed. "I've only told you a million times."

"A million and one actually," Fred smiled. "Well happy anniversary you two."

"Thank you," we both said.

"Now go open your presents," I poked George.

George nodded and scurried off to go with his brother to find his gifts. Then one that I had made for him wasn't in there because I wanted to be able to give it to him myself. I walked over to my pile and saw Hermione beaming at me.

"Why can't I have a relationship like yours?" she asked with a smile.

"You could," I said. "Just say something to Ron and - "

"Please, you know it isn't like that with Ronald," Hermione said while blushing heavily.

"Keep telling yourself that Hermione," Ginny said in a sing-song voice.

"You two are delusional," Hermione laughed.

"You're just in denial," Ginny said under her breath.

When I finished opening all of my gifts I was surprised at just how many I had gotten this year. As usual the Dursley's had sent me over a pair of Aunt Petunia's old socks, but I had been kind enough to send them a letter wishing them a happy Christmas this year. From Hermione I got a pair of earrings that were Gryffindor colors along with a matching hand-made hat from Ginny. Ron and Fred had teamed up and bought me a beautiful hand-held mirror that Fred had been so kind to have enchant so it would constantly send me cheesy chat-up lines like the ones that George used to tell. I received my usual sweater and home-made sweets from Mrs. Weasley and found that Snape had sent over a scarf that had the Slytherin colors on it (I'm sure that he had a good laugh when sending that). Neville had sent over his usual box of chocolates to me and Sirius got me a beautiful rose charm for the bracelet that Snape had gotten for me. Harry made me one of our usual hand-made cards along with a box of Bertie-Botts Every Flavor Beans. The last gift that I opened was from Tonks.

"That's pretty," Ginny said.

"I think so too," I said.

I tied the necklace with its small diamond around my neck alongside of the locket that George had given me before. Strangely enough it didn't look very tacky at all.

"Oooh, who gave you that?" Hermione asked. "That's a very rare necklace."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"These type of necklaces come in pairs," Hermione said. "Tonks probably has the matching one - I'll have to check. They are very useful. Apparently when one of the users is in trouble then the diamond glows red and becomes very warm - it goes black and becomes hot when they are in terrible danger."

"Wow," I said. "I've never heard of those before."

"Me either," Ginny said. "How do you figure these things out Hermione?"

"I've read a few books..." she mumbled.

There was a knock on the door and Harry slowly walked in and smiled at us all when he saw us.

"Merry Christmas," he said.

I gave him a hug and he walked over and sat on a chair.

"George is looking for you Emily," Harry said.

"Right," I smiled.

I walked over and picked up the wrapped scrapbook from under my bed and walked out of the room. When I checked his room he wasn't there, so I walked downstairs and found him sitting down in the sitting room. Surprisingly enough he was the only one in there.

"Hey," he smiled.

I walked over and sat next to him and handed him the gift.

"Happy anniversary," l said. "It isn't much, but I thought you might like it."

"I'm sure that I will," he said sincerely.

He tore open the wrapping paper and held the book in his hand. He gave it a curious look before he opened it up. As he flipped through each of the pages, he began to smile even more. He seemed to look at the one of us at the Yule Ball more than any of the other ones.

"This one is my favorite," he said. "I didn't even know they were taking pictures."

"Me either," I said as I thought back.

He kissed me and then walked over to the table nearby and picked up a small box sitting on top of it. When he sat back down on the couch he let out a big sigh.

"Well, mine isn't as good as yours," he said. "But I thought that you would like it..."

He handed me the box and I gave him a curious look before I opened it up. Inside of the box was a small, silvern ring with a diamond on top of it. My eyes grew big and I looked up at George instantly.

"It's a promise ring," George said. "I know that it hasn't been that long, but I just wanted to let you know that I would be willing to spend the rest of my life with you...you don't have to take it if you don't want to..."

He was blushing heavily and I smiled at him. My eyes were a bit watery and I felt like I was going to cry, but I threw my arms around him instead. This was the sweetest thing that he had ever done for me.

"I love you George," I said in a small voice.

"I love you too," he said quietly.

I sat back down where I had been and he took the box back from me. He pulled the ring out of the box and took my left hand in his. Slowly and hesitantly he put the ring on my ring finger and smiled when he finished.

"I like that on you..." he said quietly.

I let out a small laugh and then scooted closer to him. He leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips and I put my arms around his neck. He pulled me onto his lap before he deepened the kiss. His hands went around my torso and I let my hands run through his hair that seemed to be getting longer. And, as fate would have it, just before we could go any further fate set in and someone walked into the room.

"Oh, sorry," Mrs. Weasley said and she quickly backed up and was blushing heavily.

"Don't worry, it isn't the first time," George said.

I scooted off of his lap and Mrs. Weasley walked back over to us with her face still crimson.

"Everyone is getting ready to eat," she said.

"Right, we're coming," I said.

She nodded quickly and walked away like she was about to catch some sort of disease if she were to stay in the room for a moment longer. Once she was gone, George and I just looked at each other and laughed - nothing was ever going to change. We stood up together and walked into the dining room where we found most of the family already gathered.

"Nice of you to join us," Sirius said with a laugh.

"We aren't that late," I mumbled. "Not everyone is here."

"You two were the only ones missing," Harry laughed.

"Oh be nice you two," Tonks scolded. "Happy Christmas to you both."

"Well I'm happy that someone is being decent," I said as I stuck my tongue out at Harry and Sirius.

We took a seat next to one another and I found myself sitting next to Harry and George and across from Tonks and Sirius who were on the other side. When I was passed the rolls, Sirius's eyes grew large and his mouth fell open.

"What is that on your finger?" he asked.

"What?" I asked and jerked my hand back to look at it.

"Why is there a ring on your finger?" Harry asked and his eyes bulged.

Both Harry and Sirius looked directly over at George in shock. My boyfriend's eyes became big and his face grew redder than a tomato.

"Oh calm down," I said. "It's a promise ring."

"I still think it should have been an engagement ring..." Ginny muttered.

"They've only been dating for a year," Hermione said. "And Emily is only fifteen!"

"What does age matter anyway?" she asked. "Mum - weren't you and Dad dating at their age?"

"Ginny they are too young to be engaged," she said stiffly.

"Mum didn't want me to give you the ring in the first place," George rolled his eyes. "She says that we're too young to have even be thinking like that."

"But you and Arthur - " Sirius started.

Mrs. Weasley threw Sirius a look that shut him up completely and with that the conversation seemed to have ended. Harry glared at George for another moment before just shrugging it off and grabbing some potatoes from a bowl. George and I looked at one another and let out a sigh and a small laugh before we joined in on the Christmas meal.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - tell me what you think! I SHOULD have the next chapter up around Thursday (I apologize for being so inconsistent with sticking to the dates that I tell you all). I was going to write more but I figured that it would end up being put up even later than I intended so I just decided that I would add it in on the next chapter. I hadn't realized how many chapters I have put up so far and it's crazy to think that this is already the 31 chapter and I've only gotten to the Christmas time. I hope that you all don't mind. =/**

**So I believe that the majority of you all don't seem to mind too much having Harry and Ginny ending up together even if Emily and George end up together. If you really think about it, I guess that it isn't really that strange considering that they aren't blood related. If you all think any differently go ahead and voice your opinion. I think that if I do go along with the Harry/Ginny relationship then I will try to make it a little less random than I thought it to be in the book (that's just my opinion, I don't know what you all think about it).**

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	32. Visitors

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 32**

Once everyone finished eating their meal we all decided that we would go as a family to see Mr. Weasley in the hospital so that he wouldn't be alone on Christmas. Each one of us brought a wrapped gift to give him and I made sure that my gift would be special for him. I bought a book at the door labeled "The Day in the Life of a Muggle." I figured that with his high interest with their ways of life that he would find this very interesting. Harry brought with him a box of switches and wires for him knowing that Mr. Weasley would be happy to add it to his collection of Muggle electrical equipment.

When we found him in the hospital, he looked as cheerful as always but he seemed a bit off. That's when I realized that his bandages were still on - Mrs. Weasley had said that they were supposed to be off by now.

"I thought that you told me that they weren't supposed to be changed until tomorrow," Mrs. Weasley said referring to the bandages. "Is there something wrong?"

"Of course not Molly dear," Mr. Weasley said quickly. "So how has everyone's Christmas been - I see that you're all wearing your sweaters today."

"Arthur," Mrs. Weasley said warningly. "Do not avoid my question."

"I didn't," he said defensively. "There isn't anything wrong."

"What is going on?" she asked angrily. "You aren't telling us something."

"Fine," he let out a big sigh. "Only because I knew that it would upset you. You see, they have this method that they wanted to try - "

"So you're an experiment?" she asked irritably.

"In one manner of speaking," he said slowly. "But they wanted to use the regular method that Muggles use for mending wounds. You see, they are called 'stitches.'"

"And what do these 'stitches' do?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

All of us looked at one another and began to walk slowly towards the door to the room. We all knew what stitches were and there was no way that Mrs. Weasley was going to approve of them in fear that this was an inferior way of healing. That or the fact that her husband was always messing around in the way of the Muggles. Now the book that I had gotten him seemed inappropriate and I wondered silently if this would start another fight between the two. From outside of the room we could already hear Mrs. Weasley's loud scoldings at her husband for doing something without saying anything to her first and we decided that it was best if we kept some distance from the pair until they calmed down.

"How about some tea?" I suggested.

"Do you know what floor it's on?" Hermione asked.

"I think that it said it was the fifth floor," Ginny said. "Let's go look."

Fred and George decided on staying in the lobby so that they could see all of the different mishaps that had happened with the other patients as they checked in while we made our way up the stairs and towards the fifth floor. On our way up we saw many portraits along the sides of the hallway talking to each other about all of the horrible disasters that happened at the hospital during Christmas day in the past and we walked quickly and quietly up them so we didn't have to listen to the gruesome tales.

"What floor is this?" Ron asked. "I think we might have passed the fifth already."

"No, I think this is the fourth," I said looking around at the familiar territory. "We need to move up another floor."

This was the only floor of this entire hospital that seemed to be engrained into my memory - this was the Spell Damage ward and I knew that it wasn't too far from here that Neville's parents were at this very moment. I tried to usher everyone towards the stairs so that we could move quickly away from them, but I was too late. Someone else had burst through the door and stole everyone's attention.

"Come for autographs, have you?"

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. There was only one person on this floor that would ever say anything on those lines and I knew that it had to have been Gilderoy Lockhart. Even though he had lost all of his memory he seemed to have regained his love for himself and his need to sign any piece of paper that came his way. When I turned around with all of the others I saw that he was wearing a very bright blue suit on and he had his hair and face perfectly groomed as though he was getting ready for some sort of photo-shoot. I guess some things never changed.

"Professor Lockhart?" Hermione said sounding bewildered.

"Professor?" he asked sounding as lost as she had. "You must have me confused for someone else my dear girl."

"No, I am sure of who you are," Hermione said. "You were our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts just before you lost your memory."

"Me? A teacher?" he asked. "Wow, I guess I really can do anything."

"Are you sure that he's lost his memory?" Ron scowled under his breath. "Seems like the same old Lockhart to me."

"You're telling me," Ginny laughed with him.

"So how many autographs will that be?" he asked while counting all of us up. "Five? Or would you like a couple of them for each of you?"

"Actually, I don't think we really need those - " Ron started.

Before he got a chance to finish what he was saying a Healer walked around the corner and nearly jumped when she saw our small crowd outside of the ward.

"Oh, I see you have some visitors Gilderoy," she said cheerfully. "Would you like to bring them in?"

"Certainly," Lockhart said. "I'm sure that they would love to see what I've done with the place!"

"Actually, we were just - " Ginny started.

"Come on," Lockhart motioned for us to follow.

All of us looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Although it was a good thing that he was regaining his memory to become the person he had been before I couldn't help but feel that he would have been better off if he had changed a bit. The Lockhart that I knew seemed to be a bit annoying and that's what was happening with him all over again. I wonder if he had been like that his whole life...

It wasn't until we actually made our way into the room that my blood ran cold. This was the room that the Longbottoms stayed in. It wasn't that big of a deal if Harry saw them, but I knew that Neville wouldn't want Hermione, Ron, or Ginny to know about his parents just yet. The only comforting thought that I had was that maybe we wouldn't be staying long or they just simply wouldn't notice them at the end of the room.

When we actually walked through the door, relief flushed over me when I saw that the curtains were drawn where they usually were. But that comfort only lasted for a moment when I realized what was actually going on - Neville and his grandmother must have come to visit the pair in the hospital for Christmas. The only hope that I could possibly have for keeping Neville's secret safe is if we made this a quick enough trip so that they wouldn't leave before we did.

"Wow, those are a lot of pictures..." Ron muttered when we stopped at Lockhart's bed.

It was true. Lockhart's wall must have been covered with at least a dozen pictures of his smiling face. This reminded me so much of the office that he had maintained at Hogwarts - it must have been decorated with at least twice as many pictures. But I couldn't concentrate on that long enough and I found myself continuously glancing over at the far end of the room where I could only hope that the curtains wouldn't move from their place.

"What's wrong?" Harry whispered to me.

He had an eyebrow raised and he looked over to where I was looking curiously. I was just about to answer him when everyone else in our group looked at me in curiosity. It was one thing to tell Harry, but another thing entirely to tell everyone there.

"Nothing," I murmured.

Harry didn't believe me, I could tell it in his eye. When Lockhart began signing some of his pictures and the others began talking amongst themselves he turned to me again and raised his eyebrows in question.

"We need to get out of here," I said so only he could hear. "Quickly."

He didn't need to have an explanation to know that I meant what I said. He glanced back at the curtained area of the room and then back at our crowd.

"I think that we should probably be heading back to Mr. Weasley you all," Harry said. "It was nice seeing you Professor Lockhart."

"Call me Gilderoy," Lockhart said with a large smile. "And what's the rush - don't you want my autograph? You don't need to be intimidated by my fame. You have to remember that I used to be a regular no-name like yourselves."

If it hadn't been for the situation that we were in I would have rolled my eyes, but I was too anxious to get out of the room to think of anything else. Just as I was about to say something else to get a quick escape, my heart dropped when I saw the curtains pull back and an old woman in a large hat walked out - it was Mrs. Longbottom.

"Leaving already?" the Healer asked as she walked towards them.

"Yes, we were only coming for a quick visit," she said. "Come on Neville dear, we need to get back to the house."

WIth that, everyone in our group's eyes darted over to where Neville was walking out of the curtain. If I hadn't been frozen into place, I probably would have jumped on everyone to distract them from seeing him, but it was too late.

"Neville?" Ron said loudly. "What are you doing here."

When Neville caught sight of us his eyes grew wide and he took a step back from us. He looked at all of us as though we were some sort of plague that he needed to keep away from.

"Friends of yours Neville?" Mrs. Longbottom. "I don't believe that I've met all of them - I do remember Emily of course."

They all introduced themselves, but I couldn't keep my eyes off of Ron who was peering over at the end of the room to see who they had been visiting. I had to resist the strong urge to hit him over the head with the nearest object that I could get my hands on.

"How are you Mrs. Longbottom?" I asked with a smile.

"Splendid dear," she said. "But I have told you before that I would much prefer it if you called me Gran."

"Neville - are those your parents at the end there?" Ron asked suddenly.

If people could kill with looks I do believe that that Ron would have been killed five times over by Harry and me. Neville's face went through several different stages of red as Ginny, Ron, and Hermione all looked over at his parents.

"Well of course they are," Gran said. "I'm sure that you know all about that."

All of them gave her a blank look that spelled out that they didn't have a clue what was going on. A horrified looking Neville stared at the ceiling next to her probably wishing that he were anywhere else right now.

"Neville - you didn't tell your friends?" Gran asked in shock. "Are you ashamed of what your parents have done?"

"No…I'm not ashamed…" Neville said quietly.

"Seems like you are to me," she said disapprovingly before she turned back to us. "My son and his wife were put in here after they were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers."

Everyone's mouth fell open and I could see a flash of pain fly across Neville's face. This was the reason that he didn't want anyone to know. It wasn't because he was ashamed that they stood up for what they believed in, he was simply afraid that people would pity him for what had happened.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione choked out.

"You shouldn't be," Gran said. "It's upsetting that they won't be in their right minds, but I truly believe that they did the right thing. Not many others can say that they've gotten away after Death Eaters got their hands on them."

Harry and I looked at one another and I knew we were both thinking the same thing - we need to get out of here. There was no way that I could stand to have Neville like this any longer. We were just about to start suggesting that we needed to get back to the others when I noticed Alice walking over to the crowd of people. She didn't seem to notice anyone there except for her son and I suddenly felt my heart sink in my chest.

"What is it dear?" Gran asked her daughter-in-law.

She didn't say a word as she held her hand out towards Neville and placed a small piece of wrapping paper into his hand. She looked at him and I could see the fondness in her eyes when she gazed at her son. Maybe she didn't really know who it was that she was looking at, but she knew that she cared for him. I think that meant more than anything to Neville.

"Thanks Mum," Neville whispered.

"Is it another piece of rubbish?" Gran sighed. "Just toss it in the bin on our way out Neville."

When Gran looked back at her daughter-in-law as she made her way to her bed once again, I noticed Neville shove the candy wrapper into his pocket for safe-keeping. For a moment I felt like I could cry - it was little things like that I could see would mean the most to Neville right now.

"We better get going," Gran said. "It was nice to see you all."

"Nice meeting you Mrs. Longbottom," Hermione murmured.

"Bye Neville," I whispered as he walked past me.

"Bye," he said in almost a whisper.

Once they were out of the room, all of us stayed quiet for a moment or so to process what had just happened. I looked back over at Neville's Mum and Dad and found that Alice had made her way back and was now laying down looking rather peaceful. For a moment she looked up at me and gave me the same curious look that she had given me the last time that we had been at the hospital. I secretly wondered if she recognized me at all, but it wasn't very likely because I hadn't visited her all that often.

"I had no idea about his parents," Ginny said.

"Me either," Hermione said quietly.

"Never heard a thing about it," Ron said as he attempted to not stare at the pair at the end of the room.

When Harry and I remained quiet, they all looked up at us with a questioning look.

"Dumbledore told me at the end of last school year," Harry said. "And I reckon that Neville told Emily."

"He did," I said. "After that one lesson that we had with Mad-Eye about the Unforgivable Curses. He said that he didn't want anyone to know about it. I've visited them a couple of times since then…"

"So it was the Cruciatus Curse that did this?" Hermione asked in horror.

"Yes," Harry answered her. "It was because they wouldn't give the Death Eaters any information…"

"It was Bellatrix Lestrange that did that," I said.

"Isn't that Sirius's cousin?" Hermione asked. "I saw her picture on his family tree."

All of us looked back at his parents one last time before we heard a shout from behind us that reminded us why we had been in the room in the first place.

"Do you want my autograph or what?" Lockhart asked.

* * *

For the remainder of the break that we had from school, I tried my hardest to speak with Sirius as much as I could to help lessen the pain of everyone returning to their regular schedules and leaving him behind. At times he seemed happier than ever, but I could still see the sadness in his eyes because he knew that these times were going to come to an end shortly.

Whenever I wasn't talking to him, I attempted to get some of the work that was assigned to us finished and I even managed to get it done early. The only thing that we had left was planning for the upcoming DA meeting which I tried to start doing on our last day of break. However, it seemed like I was the only one that wanted to do this. Rather than helping me plan, Harry and Ron sat in their room playing wizard's chess.

"Harry - you're supposed to be helping me," I said.

"Hold on - just go you bloody knight!" Harry shouted at the slow moving piece. "I'll help you after this game, I promise!"

"You said that during the last game," I rolled my eyes.

Hermione walked into the room and rolled her eyes when she saw the two boys shouting at the game in front of them. She sat next to me on the couch in the room and looked down at the piece of parchment that I had in front of me with the plans.

"You haven't got very much…" she murmured as she read through it.

"Well it's hard to plan these things," I said. "Especially when you have to consider that we are just coming off of break when this is happening - do you think that we should just do some review before we learn anything new?"

"Maybe do a bit of review first," Hermione shrugged. "I'm sure that they are going to be ready to learn some new things."

"I suppose so…" I said as I wrote down an extra note.

Just as Harry and Ron began shouting at their fighting chess pieces, Mrs. Weasley walked through the door and raised her eyebrows at the two just before she began to talk.

"Emily and Harry - you two need to come to the kitchen for a moment," she said.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Professor Snape wanted to have a word with you both," Mrs. Weasley said.

Harry and Ron suddenly got very quiet and looked at her as though she had just lost her mind.

"Snape?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Yes dear," she said. "I suggest that you go on down now because I don't believe he has a lot of time."

When she walked out of the room, all of us stared at one another in disbelief. What was Snape doing here in Sirius's house? What was so important that he needed to talk to us about that couldn't have waited until the next day when we were at Hogwarts? Harry and I stood up without saying a word and walked out of the room as Ron and Hermione stared at us.

We walked quickly down the stairs and made our way to the kitchen where I was shocked to see Snape and Sirius sitting across from one another at the table. They both had looks of pure hatred across their faces and refused to look at one another. You could practically feel the tension in the air. When they heard us walk in, they both looked at us at once.

"Um…hello," Harry said awkwardly.

"Have a seat Potter," Snape said.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe that you really have the right to tell them what to do," Sirius said. "This is my house in case you've forgotten."

"I am here on Dumbledore's orders in case you've forgotten," Snape said coldly. "But I guess that you wouldn't understand that because you've never been asked to do anything that is useful to us."

They narrowed their eyes at one another and refused to break eye contact.

"Okay, other than reuniting with your best friend," I said sarcastically. "What exactly is it that you needed to be here for?"

"Dumbledore has asked me to teach the two of you Occlumency," he said simply.

Harry and I paused and looked at one another. Judging by the blank look on his face, he didn't have a clue what that was either. I'm glad that I wasn't alone in this.

"What is that?" Harry asked.

"The magical defense of the mind against external penetration," Snape said. "It's a difficult form of magic, but very useful if one knows what they are doing."

"And why do we need to be taught Occlumency?" I asked.

"Dumbledore thought that it would help the two of you with what has been happening recently," Snape said.

"So is he going to be teaching us?" I asked.

"No, he has other things that he needs to be working on," Snape said. "You will each receive weekly private lessons from me - your first lesson will be on Monday at six o'clock sharp. Emily, I expect to see you the following day at the same time. Neither of you are to tell anyone about these lessons."

"So what are we going to say if anyone asks?" Harry asked.

"You will tell people that you are receiving remedial Potions," Snape said as he narrowed his eyes. "It won't be hard to believe."

"And what about me?" I asked.

"You will say that you are taking advanced Potions courses," Snape said. "As you do well in my class, I couldn't see that the same excuse as your brother would apply very well."

"Do advanced Potions courses even exists?" I asked.

"As far as everyone else is concerned they do," Snape said. "Not that it wouldn't be unbelievable for you to participate in something like that. Now, I am very busy and I think that I need to be going."

He narrowed his eyes at Harry as he began to walk away from the table, but stopped when Sirius addressed him.

"Snape - if I hear that you mistreat either of them during your lessons I will make sure that you'll have to deal with me again," Sirius said.

"Wouldn't that require you to be able to leave your house?" Snape sneered. "Besides, it isn't like it matters anyway - the boy couldn't comprehend an insult anymore than his father could."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Sirius demanded as he stood up from his chair and walked towards Snape.

"What does that mean?" I muttered to Harry.

"It means that he was thickheaded," Snape said.

"And you aren't?" Sirius sneered.

"What are you talking about?" Snape asked.

"Do you honestly think that you can sit there and manipulate my goddaughter like this after what you did to her mother?" Sirius taunted. "Don't you realize how much of a fool that you're appearing to be? Don't you realize that she's going to see you as the scum you are just like her mother?"

"Don't you dare - !" Snape shouted.

"You must have known that she is going to figure out about you eventually," Sirius spat. "She's just as smart as her mother was and she'll leave you just like Lily - "

Snape pulled his wand out and Sirius did the same and pointed them at one another. Harry and I quickly, without even thinking, jumped in between the pair in attempt to stop them from killing one another - Harry stood in front of Sirius and I stood back to back with him in front of Snape. It seemed like I was always in this situation. A part of me wondered if they were ever going to be in the same room without wanting to kill one another.

"Get out of the way Harry," Sirius said from behind me.

"Emily - get out of this," Snape demanded.

"Too late for that," I said.

Instead of trying to get around us, Sirius attempted to move through us. There was a mad scramble amongst the four of us as Sirius tried to hit Snape and Snape did the same for Sirius. Harry and I were caught in the middle as we attempted to grab onto their arms to stop them from hurting each other.

"Sirius - stop!" Harry shouted.

"I'm going to murder you Snape," Sirius snarled.

"I'd like to see you try," Snape snarled back.

"Can we not act like five year olds - KNOCK IT OFF!" I shouted.

Right at that moment the door to the kitchen burst open. I turned just in time to see Mr. Weasley standing at the door. Behind him I noticed that most of the family had gathered around with him to come share the news to us.

"I've been cured!" he announced.

When everyone had a second to comprehend what was in front of them, all of their faces dropped. The two quarreling men backed off of one another and Harry and I stepped aside as well. I couldn't help but keep an eye on them both to make sure they didn't take this opportunity to start hitting each other again.

"What is going on in here?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"I was just leaving," Snape said. "I shall see the two of you on Monday and Tuesday…don't be late."

With that he walked out of the door quickly without even a backward glance. All of the Weasleys gathered into the room giving us all a look of confusion. To be honest, I don't even think I could explain what had just happened.

* * *

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	33. Leaving Sirius & Waiting for Occlumency

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 33**

Although thoroughly confused about what has just taken place, no one asked any more questions and quickly gathered around the table so that we could start our final dinner of the break before we were to return to Hogwarts.

Everyone seemed to be filled with excitement about the end of the holidays and Mr. Weasley's sudden return from the hospital. Everyone except Sirius. Although he seemed to be relieved about Mr. Weasley's recovery, something was bothering him. He didn't want us to leave him to be loneliness of his home with Kreacher and it showed clearly on his face the entire meal.

The only thing that was bothering me about Sirius was what had happened earlier. It was making me angry that nothing was ever going to change between Snape and Sirius even after all of the years that they had gone through since school. I found it difficult to join in on the conversation with the thought of it and only vaguely heard Harry tell Ron and Hermione about the Occlumency lessons that we were going to be receiving.

"Emily, are you all right?" George asked from the seat next to me. "You haven't spoken since I've been in here."

"I'm fine," I said as I looked over at him. "I just need to speak with Sirius after everyone is finished in here."

"What happened?" he asked. "Is it about what was going on with Snape and him when we came in here."

"That's exactly what it's about," I said.

I waited quietly until everyone began to finish and slowly walk out of the door as they cleaned their plates off. Sirius met my eye a few times, but quickly looked away to avoid the eye contact. He knew that I wanted to speak to him, but I had a feeling that this conversation wasn't going to be one that he would be looking forward to.

Once everyone had left the room, I decided that now would be as good of a time as any to speak my mind.

"Was what happened earlier completely necessary Sirius?" I asked him.

"What are you talking about?" he asked without meeting my eye.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," I said coldly.

"Snape deserved what he got from me," I said. "Didn't you hear what he was saying?"

"I heard what you were saying too," I said angrily. "It was completely unnecessary and childish."

"I'm not going to try to reason with you," Sirius scoffed. "You're too much like your mother - always defending the man."

He stood up and shook his head as he made his way towards the kitchen door. I stood up from my seat as well and I raised my voice so he would stop in his tracks.

"No one else will ever defend him," I said. "You say that you're so lonely here, but so many people care about you and will defend you to their death - what about him? He has no one!"

"And he shouldn't!" Sirius shouted. "Don't you know what this man has done his past? He worked for the man that killed your parents - have you forgotten that?"

"He left Voldemort's side before my parents were killed," I said angrily. "You know that as well as I do -he wasn't involved."

"That doesn't change the fact that he was a Death Eater Emily," he said. "He's a dangerous man and I don't want you associated with him."

"_He's_ dangerous!" I shouted. "You're the most wanted criminal in the country! All he's ever done is help me!"

"He isn't your father Emily," he shouted suddenly.

I went quiet. This was what bothered him the most about Snape, I could tell that much by the look in his eye. It had never accorded to me that there was more to this than an old school rivalry between the two.

"I've seen the way you act towards him," he said quietly. "You look up to him and talk to him even more than I know - don't try denying it. But he isn't your father and he never was."

"And neither are you," I said softy. "My father died before I ever had a chance to know him. Snape has always been there for me when I needed him - and so have you. That's why I need you to understand that it hurts me when the two of you are constantly at each others throats. I care about you both and I don't like having to always be in between you two. Can't you understand that?"

He was silent and looked towards the ground. I just looked at him and knew that this wasn't going to be the end of this - their fighting would never end until they died and there wasn't anything I could do about it.

"I'm sorry I've hurt you," he said quietly. "But you have to see it from my point of view - this man isn't good for you, I've seen what he's done."

"He's changed," I said. "I know that you don't believe it, but he has. He's a good man Sirius, but you'll never see that because you're blinded with hatred - you will never see my point."

Without waiting for him to reply, I walked past him and pushed through the door. I saw everyone sitting quietly in the sitting room, they had obviously heard the yelling in the kitchen. They watched me as I walked past them and stormed up the stairs. When I got to my room, I collapsed onto my head and buried my head in my hands and wished for the first time since we had been here that I was back at Hogwarts.

* * *

The following morning I woke up and quickly packed all of my things for Hogwarts along with Hermione and Ginny in my room. I was still upset about the night before, but I had let off a little bit of steam when Harry had come by the night before to see if everything was all right. Once he had left, I had a feeling that he had spoken to Sirius about what had happened and those thoughts were basically confirmed when I saw Sirius during breakfast that morning.

All throughout the meal, Sirius continued to glance over at me with the most sympathetic look on his face. A part of me just wanted to shout at him so that he would actually tell me what he was thinking, but I knew that I should be kind to him today considering the circumstances - this was going to be the last time that I would see him for a good while. Once we were all packed, we waited for Tonks and Lupin to arrive so that they could escort us back to the castle. While we were all standing near the door, Sirius finally decided to approach me.

"Hey," he said awkwardly.

Harry, who was standing next to me, raised an eyebrow at his godfather and slowly began to walk away from us so that he could talk to Ron about something. He probably figured that he wasn't making this situation any less awkward than it already was.

"Hey," I said back without looking him in the eye.

"I'm sorry about what happened last night..." he said. "I shouldn't have been angry with you and I suppose that I understand what you were saying..."

"Harry spoke with you, didn't he?" I asked.

"Well yes," he shrugged. "But I was feeling guilty before then..."

"I guess I could have been a bit more understanding too," I sighed.

Sirius gave me a small smirk and just at that moment there was a knock at the door. When Mrs. Weasley opened it up, Lupin and Tonks walked into the room and smiled at us all. Lupin seemed to not look much different than his usual self, but Tonks now had the appearance tall, elderly woman. Sometimes I wish that I had the ability to change my appearance…

"Is everyone ready to go?" Lupin asked.

Everyone began saying their last minute goodbyes and then began walking towards the door. Harry looked like he was trying to stay back so that he could have a last word with Sirius, but he was quickly ushered out of the door before he had a chance to say anything. Before I could be dragged out, I gave Sirius a hug and now felt like I didn't want to leave ever again. It was hard to say when I would see him again and I really hoped that I would be able to speak to him before the summer holidays.

"Have a good term," Sirius said in my ear. "And keep in touch, I would like to hear from you."

"I will," I said. "And try not to kill Kreacher while we're gone. I would imagine that Hermione would have a fit with you if you did."

"I'll try not to," he said with a smile.

"I love you Sirius," I said.

"I love you too," he said quietly. "Now go have fun at school…"

I let go of him and with gave him one more quick look back before Tonks basically shoved me out of the door. Once we were all out on the street, we sort of huddled together for a bit. That was when something suddenly occurred to me - how were we actually getting back to Hogwarts? Every other year Harry and I spent Christmas holiday at Hogwarts, so we never actually knew how people got back to the castle.

"How - ?" I started.

"We're going to be taking the Knight Bus," Tonks answered before I could ask. "We figured that it would be the most convenient."

"Oh," I said with distaste.

"It's not my favorite form of transportation either," she said while scrunching her nose up. "I never cared for their driving - it's always made me ill."

"I could understand that," I said. "I've only ever been on it once."

"That's one time too many in my opinion," she said.

Lupin suddenly stuck his arm out towards the street and lit his wand. Suddenly, and without any sort of warning, there was a loud _BANG_ and a large, triple-decker bus appeared out of thin air. All of us nearly jumped out of our skin when the door to the vehicle burst open so that we could see the driver.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus!" the man shouted.

"Yeah, yeah," Tonks muttered. "Everyone get in now."

We all stepped into the bus and the driver suddenly had huge eyes when he saw Harry and me walking past him.

"Well I'll be - it's the P - " he started.

"Keep you're mouth shut if you know what's good for you," Tonks threatened.

"Well someone is in a bad mood," he said.

Tonks rolled her eyes as we went around to find some empty chairs. We all decided that it was best that we split our group up because we couldn't find a place that would fit us all. Before the bus began to dart off again, I sat in a chair next to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Tonks.

"I see you're wearing that necklace that I got you," Tonks said with a smile. "Do you like it all right? I wasn't sure if you would, I just knew that they are very useful."

"I love it," I smiled. "Hermione told me all about them - they're very interesting."

"I'm glad that you like it," she smiled.

Before we had a chance to say anything else, we were all thrown back as the bus took off towards its next spot. None of us spoke as we attempted to hold back our vomit as we were tossed all around the bus with the rest of the passengers. The only thing that I hoped for now was that our stop would come up very soon.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Ron said as we stopped off on a street that two elderly people stepped out onto.

"You aren't the only one," Hermione said.

Luckily enough for us the next stop that we made was for Hogwarts where we were left at Hogsmeade. We all scurried off of the bus with our luggage in hand and all looked eager to get as far away from the bus as we possibly could.

"You all take care of yourselves," Lupin said with a smile. "Harry and Emily, I want you two to try your best to listen to Snape. He is really good with Occlumency and you two could learn a lot from him. This is for your own good, so do try hard to listen to him."

"I'll try," Harry sighed.

Once they had boarded the bus once more and took off, I looked back up to the castle as we began to walk towards it and I couldn't help but feel like I wanted to go back to Sirius's house. Nothing was worse than having to go back to a school that was run by Dolores Umbridge…

* * *

The following day we all tried to lighten Harry's mood as much as we could before he had to start his lessons with Snape. I didn't have mine until tomorrow, but I wasn't as concerned about it as he was. Something about him absolutely hating the man had him dreading the evening. I suppose that it didn't make it any easier on him that we had double Potions that morning.

"As if I'm not going to see him enough today," Harry muttered.

"What do you mean?" Neville asked him as he took his usual seat next to me.

"Er - I have remedial Potions with him once a week," Harry said nervously.

"Remedial Potions?" Neville asked. "How did you end up in that when I'm worse than you in this subject?"

"No idea," Harry muttered.

Luckily enough, he had run into Cho before lunch that day and managed to get a date set up with her for Valentine's Day. I was hoping that would brighten up his mood for the rest of the day, but it seemed to wear off after a while once the lessons grew nearer.

During dinner that evening you could practically see Harry twitching from how nervous he was about his Occlumency lessons. He continued to glance up at the staff table to see what Snape was doing. Something told me that he was hoping that he would forget all about it and they would no longer have anything to do with it. When Snape rose from the table, Harry's eyes grew wide and he began to stand up as well.

"Good luck Harry," I said sympathetically. "Are you sure that you don't want me to walk down there with you?"

"No, I'll be fine," he said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Not really," he shrugged. "I'll see you all after the lesson."

"Be nice!" I shouted as he walked away from us all.

He smiled back at me and then was out of the room not all that far behind Snape. All I could hope for was that the two of them didn't kill one another while they were down there. I think that Harry and Snape got along just as well as Sirius and Snape. This was going to be bad…

"Hey Emily!" someone shouted from behind me.

I turned around in my seat and found Draco standing up from the Slytherin table. He motioned for me to walk over there and I raised my eyebrow. George looked up at me as I stood up with a questioning look.

"What does he want?" he asked.

"No idea," I shrugged.

"Do you want me to go with you?" he asked skeptically.

"I think I'll be fine," I said. "Draco Malfoy isn't much of a threat anyway."

"True," he smirked. "But if you need me to come kick his ass then just call for me."

"Will do," I laughed.

I stepped over towards the Slytherin table where I found Draco sitting with his usual group of friends. When I got over there, I could clearly see Pansy Parkinson glaring at me like I was some nasty insect that had flown into sight. It was so nice to see her again.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"Have a seat," Draco said as he scooted over.

I rolled my eyes and sat down next to him. Every one of his friends looked at me funny and I felt the strong urge to run away because I knew that I didn't belong here.

"So how was your holiday?" he asked casually.

"Cut it out," I said bluntly. "I know you didn't invite me over here for idle chit-chat."

"What is your brother doing?" he asked.

"How is that any of your concern?" I asked.

Crabbe and Goyle narrowed their eyes and made some sort of grunting noise as though they were ready to beat me up for information.

"Could you calm your friends down?" I asked. "I wouldn't want to have to beat anyone with a club again now, would I?"

"It didn't even hurt," Goyle said angrily.

"I broke your arm Goyle," I said bluntly. "I heard the bone crack - don't lie and say it didn't hurt."

"Broken bones don't hurt," he grunted.

"You better be glad that I didn't hit you over the head," I spat. "Then again, it isn't like there are any vital organs up there in your case."

"What?" he asked.

"My point exactly," I said.

"Alright - enough," Draco said. "Now back to what I was saying."

"Harry is going to remedial Potions," I said. "Now can I go back to my table?"

"Please do," Pansy said with an eye roll.

"Was I talking to you?" I spat.

"You are now," she said.

"I've heard better come backs from five year olds," I said.

"Can't you just go back to your table," she said angrily. "No one wants you here."

"Draco wants me over here," I said. "Which is something that you will never be able to say."

"Okay that's enough ladies," Draco said. "You'll have time to fight over me later."

"Please," I scoffed.

"You know you want me," he winked at me.

"Isn't it obvious?" I said sarcastically.

"Why does Potter have remedial Potions?" he asked.

"Are you seriously asking me that?" I said. "After all of the taunts that you've given him about his grades."

"I'm saying that there are worse students in the class," Draco said. "And I'm curious as to why he was chosen instead of someone else."

"Because he wants to improve his grade," I said simply. "What's wrong with that?"

"You're the best student in the class," he said. "Why didn't he ask you?"

"I have other things to do," I said.

"Like what?" he asked.

I nearly said that I have DA lessons to plan, but I quickly held my tongue and thought of something else as fast as I could.

"I'm on the Quidditch team now," I said.

"_You_ are on the Quidditch team?" he said with a laugh.

"Is that so hard to believe?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, if you can make a team then anyone else should be able to as well."

"I just didn't know you played," he said while ignoring my latter comment. "Are you the new Seeker?"

"No, I'm a Beater," I said.

"Taking over your boyfriends spot, are you?" he asked.

"That's right," I said.

"Did Umbridge even allow you to do that?" he asked.

"Why do I need her permission?" I asked.

"Because your brother was banned for life," Draco said. "I figured that you wouldn't be allowed either. Especially considering what you did to Goyle."

"She doesn't know what I did to Goyle," I said.

"And what if we tell her?" Goyle asked.

"Would you be willing to admit that a girl broke your arm?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It isn't like she's much of a threat anyway," Draco shrugged. "We're still going to kick your asses on the field."

"I'm sorry, did that injury to your face also effect your memory?" I asked with a small smirk. "We won the last game Malfoy."

"Only because your brother was lucky," Draco said. "Trust me, it won't happen again."

"_Hem, hem_."

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I could have gone an entire century without hearing that noise again. Just that small clearing of the throat made me want to punch a wall, but all I did was simply turn around and look up at the woman that was standing behind where I was sitting.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"Miss Potter, this is the Slytherin table," she said.

I paused for a moment expecting her to say something more, but she didn't saying anything else and just smiled at me instead.

"Is that why I'm not surrounded by my usual classmates?" I said with a look of fake shock on my face.

"Go back to your table Miss Potter," she said without a smile, apparently not appreciating my comment.

"Okay, I was about to go there anyway," I shrugged.

"One more thing," she said just as I was standing up. "What is this that I hear you are going to have extra lessons with Snape?"

"No, that's only her brother," Draco said.

"Thank you Mister Malfoy, but I wasn't speaking to you," she said.

"I am receiving advanced lessons with Potions, it is true," I said. "I have found that regular Potions lessons aren't challenging enough for me and I felt that this would be a good idea considering what I am planning on doing in the future."

"Isn't that funny that you're receiving advanced courses while your brother can hardly make it by as it is," she said.

"I don't find my brother's struggles amusing in the least," I said with a straight face. "And I wouldn't think you would either Professor."

Her smile dropped from her face and she suddenly looked very angry. I guess that she didn't like to be made out to be a fool. It's a shame because everyone already knows that she is a fool.

"Just be warned," she said. "I am watching you all."

"Nice to know," I said. "May I leave now?"

I would have found her statement a lot more threatening if she wasn't a foot shorter than me. Something about that and my constant vision of her as a toad made it impossible for me to look at her as though she was a threat.

She didn't answer me and instead walked back towards the table that she had been sitting at. I rolled my eyes and walked back over to the Gryffindor table without a glance back at Draco and his friends. It's amazing how drama can start when I've only been in school for about 24 hours.

* * *

When Harry had gotten out of his Occlumency lessons he found us sitting in the common room looking over all of the homework that we had. I had nearly finished when he took a seat next to us in the crowded common room.

"So how was it?" I asked.

"It was awful," he said with a frown. "I don't like those lessons and I don't like that you're going to have to do them tomorrow."

"I'll be fine," I shrugged. "Was it hard what he was making you do?"

"Yes, but only because he wouldn't explain what I had to do before he was invading my mind," he said.

"But you did try, right?" Hermione asked.

"Sure I tried," Harry said. "But it isn't easy to block someone from reading your thoughts."

"Is there anything I could do to prepare myself?" I asked.

"Not really," he said. "Just be prepared to have literally no privacy at all because he is going to see everything in your mind. Speaking of which, I have some news."

"What?" Ron asked eagerly.

"Emily, you know that room that we keep seeing in our dreams?" he asked.

"The one that we can't get into?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I saw it during my lesson again and I know what it is - it's the Department of Mysteries!"

"How did you figure that out?" I asked. "Did Snape tell you?"

"No, but I remember seeing it when Mr. Weasley brought me to my hearing," he said. "That's got to be what it is!"

"What is in the Department of Mysteries though?" Hermione asked. "How is that important?"

"Do you think that could be where it is?" I suggested. "Could it be the weapon that Snuffles was talking about?"

"That's what I was thinking," Harry said.

"That would be a really odd place to put a weapon though, wouldn't you think?" Ron asked. "I've heard Dad talk about that place before and no one knows what goes on in there."

"Which is why it is a perfect hiding place," Hermione said. "No one would be able to find it there."

Even though we had figured out how this room was significant, it didn't help us all that much when considering what this object could be. What could be in this room that Voldemort wanted so badly?

* * *

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	34. Get Out of My Head

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 34**

The following morning I woke up to find some of the most disturbing news that I had heard for a long time. On the front page of the Daily Prophet, I read that there had been a massive breakout from Azkaban which included a whole load of Death Eaters that I would now guess were running off to find Voldemort as we spoke.

"They think that it's Sirius," Hermione said with a defeated voice as she read through the article. "They think that he was the one that got them out."

"Are you kidding me?" I asked in disbelief. "Great - I'm sure that he is going insane right now!"

"Don't you see what this means though?" Hermione asked.

We all looked at each other in question and Hermione rolled her eyes as if the answer was sitting directly in front of our faces.

"The dementors must have changed sides again," she lowered his voice. "This has to be what this is - Voldemort must have gotten to them and that is how the Death Eaters broke out!"

"It makes sense," I admitted. "Remember Hagrid talking about them recruiting all of the people that they had before - history is repeating itself."

"Only this time it's going to be much worse," Harry said miserably.

For the remainder of the day we attempted to keep ourselves quiet and not create any added trouble to what all was going on. The only person that seemed to be as miserable as us was Neville who must have read the article as well. But something didn't add up - why was he so upset about it?

"Are you okay?" I asked him when he began to poke at his eggs with his fork.

"I'm fine," he shrugged without making eye contact.

"You're an awful liar," I said. "Now what is it?"

"Did you read the Prophet this morning?" he asked.

"Well, I heard about the break out," I said. "But I didn't actually read it myself."

"Then you didn't hear exactly who it was that broke out, did you?" he sighed.

"Who?" I asked.

"Bellatrix Lestrange," Neville said in a low voice. "She's the one that...did that to my parents..."

I don't know why the thought hadn't occurred to me before. When Gran had told me what had happened, she had mentioned that the Death Eaters that had done it were now in Azkaban for their crime.

"Oh," I said. "Maybe they'll catch them before they get too far..."

It felt bad coming from my mouth because I knew that it was a downright lie and I could tell that he was thinking the same thing too. Once they were out there was a very slim chance that they were getting back especially if the dementors really were working with Voldemort again.

Everything else that day seemed to go along fairly well considering what had happened. Not too many people seemed to be freaking out about it, so we did our best to keep a low profile so that no one would ask us anything - not that they would think we had any information on it anyway. Everything seemed to be going normally until we ran into Hagrid that day and he announced to us that Umbridge had put him on probation because of the bad report she had given to him for his inspection.

"Probation?" I said in shock. "Why would she do that?"

"I expect that she doesn't like my teaching," Hagrid sighed. "Ya should be movin' along, I think I see her over there."

Sure enough she walked around the corridor just as we began to walk away from Hagrid. Luckily enough she didn't question us, but I couldn't help but notice how proud she seemed to look today. Nothing made her happier than to make everyone around her miserable. It was so nice to have a person like her in charge of our school.

With everything on my mind, I found it difficult to even process the fact that I had Occlumency lessons later tonight with Snape. Harry had already gone through what all we were expected to do and he mentioned that the most important thing was to have a clear mind when trying to block people from invading it - how was that going to be possible now?

As the time drew nearer for me to go to the lessons, I found myself dreading them nearly as much as Harry had been. What if I couldn't do it? What if Snape saw something that I didn't want him to see? What if I can never learn? These were all things that kept flying through my mind until we finally got to dinner and I nearly had to leave.

"Everything is going to be fine," Harry said. "You just need to calm down."

"How do you expect me to do that?" I asked in disbelief. "How am I supposed to shut down my mind with everything that is happening?"

"You just have to try your best," Harry said confidently. "You're going to be great, you just need to not be so nervous and let everything fall off of your shoulders while you're there."

"Is that what you did?" I asked.

"Well...not exactly," he said awkwardly. "I hardly knew what I was doing - but you normally do better in class than I do."

"No I don't," I said. "Only in Potions."

When Snape stood up from his seat and walked out towards his room, I nearly jumped out of my chair and slowly began to freak out.

"Babe, you're going to be fine," George said. "You always do everything perfectly."

"That's sweet," I said with a smile. "But I'm not sure anything could help right now..."

"Just concentrate on the goal," George said. "Don't let him get to you."

I let out a sigh and waved everyone goodbye as I walked out of the Great Hall. On my way to the classroom, I attempted to try to clear my mind and calm my nerves so that I wouldn't be so jumpy when I got there.

When I finally found my way to the door, I found that it was shut and I could hear a single sound coming from the other side. I let out a deep breath and hesitantly knocked on the door.

"Come in," Snape said.

When I stepped into the room, I found him sitting behind his desk going through a large stack of papers. He pushed them off to the side slowly before he looked up at me.

"Good evening Emily," he said. "I'm sure that your brother has already told you all about what you're going to be doing in here today."

"Nearly everything," I said innocently.

"I assume that I should probably begin by telling you what this class is going to be about," he said. "Occlumency is a very difficult form of magic that can only be obtained by those who truly work to meet the requirements. As I'm sure you're well aware of, this form of magic is used to protect the mind against outside forces - especially the mind of the Dark Lord."

"I have a question before we start," I announced as I took a seat in front of his desk. "How does the previous dream really relate to Voldemort in the slightest - we saw the attack from the eye of the snake."

"Don't say the Dark Lord's name," he said irritably. "And you only saw if from the snake's eyes because the Dark Lord was possessing the creature at the time."

"Oh..." I said. "So that's why we're doing this...so we won't be possessed again?"

"Well, you two weren't technically possessed," Snape said. "It's another one of those odd things with the two of you - Dumbledore seems to feel that the three of you have a strange connection that allowed you to see what he sees and feel as he does."

"But how does that make sense?" I asked. "Has that ever happened to anyone else before?"

"No, but no one has ever survived the Killing Curse either," Snape said.

This was an opportunity that I had to take now that he left me open to discuss it. Ever since we had discovered what had happened to us, I had always wondered the exact details as to what had happened. The Killing Curse can only be used to kill one person at a time, so I had always wondered how that had worked out.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked.

"That's a question in itself," he pointed out bluntly.

"Er...I suppose it is," I said awkwardly.

"Go ahead," Snape said as he sat back in his chair.

"It's about the night that V- You-Know-Who killed my parents," I said while looking at the floor. "I've been wondering about this for a long time because it never made that much sense to me - how is it that he managed to hit us both with a curse that is only meant for one person? How is it that it managed to effect us both instead of just one of us?"

Snape was silent for a moment and seemed to be a bit surprised that I had asked the question. I could only hope then that he wouldn't become angry with me and not give me the answer.

"It's a mystery," he said suddenly. "There weren't any witnesses there, so no one can really be for sure what happened on that night."

"So...there aren't even guesses?" I asked.

"There are some - some more outrageous than others," he answered. "One of the most popular theories was made by Dumbledore about what had happened."

I paused for a moment hoping that he would elaborate, but apparently he was going to need some coaxing in order to do that.

"And that theory would be...?" I asked.

"Dumbledore seems to feel that the two of you were directly next to each other when the curse was sent your way," Snape explained. "He believes that it is most likely that you were holding hands, like most children will do when they are afraid, and the energy somehow went through both of your bodies."

That's when I suddenly remembered the dream that I always had that involved that night. I remember clearly sitting on the floor with Harry and we were both holding hands and looking at the cold, evil man that had just murdered our parents. I guess I had never realized how accurate that dream could have been to the real event.

"I think we need to move on with the lesson," Snape said as he looked up at the clock sitting next to his desk.

"Oh, right," I said.

He stood up and motioned for me to stand up as well. Suddenly everything hit me at once and I began to panic - I wasn't going to be able to do this, there was no way! I couldn't clear my mind with all of the things that I had figured out today. Snape was going to be angry with me and Voldemort was going to be able to get into my mind and everything was going to be horrible because I had no control over my mind.

"Okay," he said as he took a wand out. "You may take your wand out and use any defensive spell that you can to get me out of your mind."

"But...I thought I was only going to have to block my thoughts out," I said nervously.

"That's what we're aiming for," Snape said. "But I don't expect you to get that right off considering how difficult this sort of magic is. The best thing that we can do for now is to have you defend yourself in a way that you are more familiar with."

"Er - okay," I said as I grabbed my wand from my pocket.

"Are you ready?" he asked me with a raised eyebrow.

"Not exactly," I said. "But I suppose that I never will be so we might as well give it a go."

"Okay, I am now going to invade your mind - remember to do anything you are capable of to keep me out of your thoughts," he said as he stood with his wand at the ready. "Here we go - Legilimens!"

Harry had been right - nothing could have prepared me for what was happening right now. The room that I had once stood in with Snape had suddenly disappeared and now I was in a world that seemed all too familiar. Everything around me seemed to appear in small flashes like we were looking through small clips of my past.

I was five years old and Aunt Marge was chasing me around with her cane telling me to get back over to her so that she could teach me some respect...Harry and I were walking through the hallways on our first day at our Muggle school when Dudley ran up and pushed us to the ground and everyone laughed...I was in the middle of a crowd and all of the girls were making fun of me for the dress that Aunt Petunia had forced me to wear...Dudley's friend Nathan was calling me ugly and I ran away from him crying as Dudley laughed at me...Harry and I were in a shack on our eleventh birthday when a large man began beating on the door to tell us why we had been so different after all...

Everything began to spiral down at once and I was suddenly back in the dungeons with Snape staring at me with the most sympathetic look in his eyes. Had he seen everything that I had just seen? I suddenly began to feel embarrassed and realized that I hadn't done anything to stop him from seeing these old memories of mine, the only thing I could do was feel the sorrow that I had felt through all of the years of torment that the Dursleys had put me through before Harry and I discovered Hogwarts.

"I'm sorry," I said while looking down at the floor. "I didn't realize what was happening...I didn't know what to do..."

"I didn't expect you to," Snape nodded in understanding. "The same thing happened to your brother, but he seemed to have reacted a little differently than you."

I could only imagine how he could have felt when Snape had seen his memories. Snape was no enemy of mine but I knew that Harry hated him with every fiber of his being, so I could imagine that the whole experience made him feel humiliated and vulnerable. At the same time, I still felt embarrassed because those weren't exactly the kinds of memories that I wanted to share with him - they were incredibly embarrassing.

"Who was that boy by the way?" Snape asked offhandedly.

"He was a friend of my cousin," I said without even asking which boy he was referring to - it wasn't hard to guess. "Why?"

"Just curious," Snape said with a slightly irritable expression. "Now I want you to try something. Before I do this again, I want you to try to clear your mind of everything - make yourself free of all emotions and get rid of all thought."

I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes to concentrate. When I felt like everything in me had left and I was emotionless, I opened up my eyes and nodded. He raised an eyebrow and then pointed his wand at me once again.

"Ready?" he asked.

I nodded once more and he shouted the spell.

"Legilimens!"

Everything went black again and the flashing memories flew around me like wildfire.

We were all walking into the Forbidden Forest during our first year for detention and I was holding tightly onto Neville's hand...I was hiding in the garden from Aunt Petunia after I had broken her favorite flower pot...Harry was pulling me away from Sirius in the Shrieking Shack because he didn't know the full story...Karkaroff was standing in the middle of the courtroom shouting that Snape was a Death Eater...Neville's parents were staring at me with that heartbreaking look that showed their emptiness -

No.

I didn't want him to see anymore. Those thoughts were private and they weren't my stories to tell and he had no right seeing them from me and I wanted it to stop.

Dudley was suddenly shoving me down on the playground and Harry was fighting him back...Umbridge was giving a cruel smile down at Harry as his blood ran down his arm during detention...the Dark Mark was thrown into the sky and I was running through the crowd of people in a panic...I was sitting in the Shrieking Shack with Sirius and he was laughing about a story that he had told about his school years...I was singing Harry to sleep when we were young after he had woken up from and awful nightmare that had made him cry...George was leaning into kiss me for the first time and my heart was racing a mile a minute -

"ENOUGH!" I shouted.

Everything around me faded and became black. There was nothing except darkness before everything suddenly came back into focus and I was standing inside of the dungeons once again and Snape was up against the other wall with a very shocked look on his face.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"You didn't realize what you were doing, did you?" Snape asked with a raised eyebrow.

"What was I doing?" I asked.

"You shot a spell at me," Snape said. "You must have done it without realizing it. I suppose that I should have expected it considering your brother did the same thing yesterday during his lesson...though his was a little sooner than yours."

"Is that a good thing?" I asked hesitantly.

"Better than I expected," he said honestly.

I nodded and then sat down on the seat that was next to me. My head was aching and I felt like it was going to explode as I laid it down into my hands in attempt to ease the pain. The only fear that I had was that this was going to continue and I knew that it was only the beginning of these lessons which meant that this year was going to be filled with headaches.

"You never told me that you sang," he said suddenly as he walked behind his desk.

My head jerked up from my hands and I glared at him.

"So?" I said a little harshly.

"I'm just making a comment," he said innocently. "Do you do that often?"

"No," I said. "I only did that when Harry couldn't sleep...it's been years since I've sung to anyone."

"Why?" he asked.

"Is that your business?" I snapped. "You shouldn't even know about this - you shouldn't be invading my mind! Those thoughts are supposed to be private!"

He looked shocked that I had gone off so suddenly on him and he sat down in his chair and glared at me.

"I think that you've done enough today," he said. "I can see that it's effecting you."

"Well how about I prod around in your mind and see how you like it," I said irritably.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It wasn't like I volunteered for the job."

I let out a sigh and sat back in my chair and shook my head.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just need some sleep...it's been a long day."

"You need to practice this," he said.

"How many more times?" I asked in a defeated voice.

"Until you've mastered it," he said.

"And if I don't?" I asked.

"Then your mind is easy prey for the Dark Lord," he said. "Dumbledore believes that the incident with Arthur Weasley the other day made the Dark Lord fully aware that there is some sort of connection between the three of you."

"And how did he figure that out?" I asked. "Did he ask Voldemort himself?"

"What did I say about using his name?" Snape said through gritted teeth.

"Old habits die hard," I said.

I don't know why I had become so angry towards him, but there was just something that was making me very irritable. Maybe it was the constant poking around in my head that did it or maybe it was that Voldemort was having another anger trip that I was picking up on. It's honestly open to interpretation at this point.

"Since this will be all of our lesson today, I suppose that I should start you off on an assignment while you aren't here," he said. "Before you go to bed each night, attempt to free your mind of all thought and emotion. Trust me, I'll notice if you don't practice."

"Fine," I said shortly.

"Don't get angry with me," Snape said with narrowed eyes. "This is going to help you."

"Can I go now?" I asked as I rubbed my temples.

"You are excused," he said.

Without even glancing back at my Potions teacher, I quickly escaped from the dungeons trying to put as much distance as I could between myself and it. When I finally made it to the corridor where the Fat Lady was, I found that the door was already opened and someone was walking out.

"Hey," George smiled and then it quickly turned into a frown. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said irritably. "Snape is getting on my nerves."

"Snape?" George asked with a raised eyebrow. "You two normally get along, don't you?"

"Well...yes," I said considering this. "But not when he's poking around in my mind like it's a toy. My thoughts and memories are private and I feel like I'm being forced into this."

"It's supposed to help you though," he said as I walked into the empty common room with him following close behind. "You did listen to him, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," I snapped.

"Don't get snappy with me - I haven't done anything," George said defensively.

I sighed and sat down on the couch with him. Only a moment later we were joined by Harry and Ron who were walking out of their dormitory. When Harry saw me he instantly knew that I was unhappy with something and it really wasn't difficult to guess what it was.

"I told you that it was awful," Harry said as he sat down across from us.

"I just don't feel that this sort of thing should be allowed," I said. "I feel all exposed now that I know that he has seen so much..."

"I thought you told him virtually everything," Harry said.

"That isn't true," I said. "And it's one thing if I volunteer information and another thing entirely when it's forced from your brain..."

"Well it's going to help you," George said. "It probably just takes some time to get used to it. You shouldn't get so mad at Snape for it because, from what I hear, it wasn't even his decision to do this - it was Dumbledore's idea."

"I know..." I sighed and then a sudden thought occurred to me. "Wait a minute - were you just defending Snape?"

"I think he was," Harry said in disbelief.

"Are you ill mate?" Ron asked him.

"No," George said quickly. "It's just that I don't think it's right for her to be angry with him when I know that she normally gets along with him so well."

"I guess that you're right," Harry shrugged. "Even though the man is a prick..."

"Don't be mean," I said defensively.

"She even defends him when she's angry with him," Ron laughed.

I rolled my eyes and then decided that it was best if I went to sleep so I wouldn't have to deal with this horrible headache that I had. Once I was lying down, I attempted to clear my mind of all thought, but I found that as difficult as I had in the room with him since my mind was swimming with everything that was going on. The last thought I had before I fell asleep was how hard it was going to be to protect my mind from Voldemort when I couldn't even protect it from my Potions professor...

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I apologize that it is up late, but I have been incredibly busy lately with SATs coming up and having to help my sister move out of our house. The next chapter should be up around Monday (and it actually should be up then considering I have a long weekend).**

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	35. Time Flies When You're Busy

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I will never own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 35**

If I had ever thought before that coming back to Hogwarts after Christmas Break was going to be easy, I would have been seriously mistaken and this week alone has proven it. Not only was I forced into Occlumency lessons, but I also had to help manage the DA with Harry along with Quidditch practice at least once a week. Throw in homework and classes into that mix and you have my own personal brand of hell.

"I think that you need to calm down," George said. "Everything is going to be all right."

"I am perfectly calm," I said through gritted teeth. "I just need to find a better way to manage my time."

"Maybe you could ask Professor McGonagall about a Time-Turner," Hermione suggested as she began knitting another hat for the elves.

"You're joking, right?" I said with a laugh. "There is no way that she would allow it considering what happened in our third year."

"That Time-Turner saved Sirius's life," Harry said.

"I don't want to use a Time-Turner," I said irritably. "It's way too much to deal with - I don't need anymore secrets to keep from people."

"Maybe I could take on more of the load for the DA," Harry said. "It isn't like I have to go to Quidditch practice anymore."

"You shouldn't have to do those all by yourself," I said. "And I actually like planning for Dumbledore's Army - it's the only time that I don't have to be concerned with following all of the rules."

Even with all of the stress that all of these things were causing, I had to manage my time better and then I would be fine. Instead of putting off homework until the last minute like I usually did, I found that it would be much easier if I began working on them during meals and while I wasn't doing anything else in class. I figured that once I began getting used to this hectic schedule that I would be able to deal with it much better anyway.

On top of all of that, Umbridge decided to impose a new decree on the school - something that she had seemed to have become fond of doing. The newest rule that was forced upon the school was that teachers were no longer allowed to discuss any information with their students that wasn't directly related to the subject that they were teaching. I had a strong feeling that this rule had to do with the latest breakout in Azkaban and Fudge had demanded that we weren't allowed to discuss it with anyone. I also had a feeling that Umbridge was even more fond of this rule because it no longer allowed me to have any discussion with Snape that didn't have to do with Potions.

"These rules are outrageous," Ginny scowled as we walked out onto the Quidditch field. "She's taking away all of our freedoms for no good reason."

"It's not like we can do anything about it," I said miserably. "How much do you want to bet that her next decree won't allow us to even speak to one another?"

"It wouldn't be shocking," she said.

It wasn't until we were all up in the air and flying around that I noticed a small crowd forming along the stadium. From the looks of it, Draco and his friends were walking towards Harry, Fred, George, Hermione, and Ron that had all come out to watch us. Something told me that the conversation that they were having wasn't going to be a very pleasant one.

"Get your head in the game Emily!" Angelina called to me.

That's when I noticed that I had been sitting in the same place for a few minutes and decided to look around to see what was going on. At the moment we were split up into two small teams for a scrimmage and Angelina had just flew past me with the Quaffle in her hands. She was moving quickly towards Ron who looked terrified of missing the ball. Just as I expected, Angelina threw the ball effortlessly through the middle hoop leaving Ron bewildered.

"He isn't very good, is he?"

I jerked my head around and found Andrew flying over next to me. During this scrimmage, he was playing the opposing team's Beater. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much that we could do at the moment with the Bludger flying idly underneath us.

"Who asked you anyway?" I retorted.

When I began to move away from him, he went at top speed and ended up blocking me from moving. Of course, he must not have realized that I was on a Firebolt and could have easily have knocked him off his broom without even trying, but something told me that Angelina wouldn't have like that too much.

"What is your problem?" I said. "I'm trying to practice."

"Are you still dating that Weasley bloke?" he asked suddenly.

"W-what?" I asked in surprise.

"You know, the one with the twin," he said.

"Yes, I am still dating him," I said with a raised eyebrow. "What is your point?"

"That's a shame," he said. "I would have loved to have taken you out - we would make an amazing couple."

"Trust me, we really wouldn't," I rolled my eyes.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Andrew said. "Maybe you should just dump the sorry ginger and stick with me - I could make you very happy, if you know what I mean."

"I'm happy with George," I replied irritably. "Now would you leave me alone."

"So when are we going to go out?" he asked.

"What are you talking about?" I retorted.

"On our date - you can't tell me no," he winked.

"No," I said bluntly.

"Oh come on - my treat," he said. "I'll take you anywhere!'

"I'm not interested," I said.

"You don't have to tell Fred," he said.

"I'm dating George," I said with an eye roll.

"Whatever," he said. "So Hogsmeade, right?"

"No," I said as I began to lose my patience. "I'm not interested in you and George makes me very happy, thank you very much."

"I'm only asking for one date," he said. "It's not cheating - you aren't married."

"We're engaged," I lied suddenly, not being able to think of anything else.

His mouth dropped open and he looked at me in disbelief. He appeared as though he was going to say something to deny it, but he cast a look at my left hand and saw the ring on my fourth finger. Of course he wouldn't actually know that it was just a promise ring, but that didn't matter at the moment.

"Andrew - what are you doing?" Ginny said as she flew around us.

"Nothing," he said simply as he flew off into the game.

He flew off quickly to go knock the Bludger back into play and Ginny gave me a questioning look.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"I have no idea," I shrugged. "All I have to say is the guy is a little bit creepy."

"Honestly you two!" Angelina shouted at us. "We are supposed to be practicing - focus!"

We rolled our eyes and then I flew out and knocked the Bludger that was coming towards me to the ground with my bat as it flew towards me. It made a deep his and I heard a scowl coming from Andrew above me on his broom.

After a little less than an hour, Angelina blew her whistle and we all flew towards the ground. Overall, the practice wasn't all that bad aside from the minor distractions that I had and the fact that Ron couldn't block the Quaffle from the rings if his life depended on it. It was a sad thing, but it was very true. Once I began to walk out of the locker room after changing my robes, I ran into Andrew who was walking out of the boys' changing room.

"Has Ron already left?" I asked him.

"No, he's in there moping about how awful he was," Andrew said with an eye roll.

"He's just nervous, that's all," I said.

"Have you not been watching him play?" he scoffed. "I think you would make a better Keeper than him."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped.

"I'm saying that you aren't that experienced," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"And you are?" I spat. "Ron made the team during the first set of try-outs - from what I heard you weren't even considered."

"That's only because your boyfriend and his twin already had the positions filled," he said defensively.

"No person is guaranteed a spot just because they've held it before," I said.

"Right, keep believing that," he scoffed. "You're so naive."

"Keep it up and I'll knock a Bludger through your teeth," I spat.

It wasn't until after I had said it that I noticed Ron walking out of the locker rooms. His eyes grew wide and he looked from me to Andrew as if he expected us to start throwing fists at one another. Andrew looked at Ron and left with one last scoff.

"What was that about?" Ron asked once Andrew was out of sight.

"He started it," I mumbled.

We walked back towards the castle and found that Harry and everyone else in the crowd that had been watching us was waiting.

"Oh, hey," I said as we started to walk past them.

"What's up with that Kirke bloke?" George asked.

"Why?" I asked sounding angrier than I intended.

"He just stormed past us and gave me the dirtiest look," George said.

"No, I'm pretty sure that dirty look was directed towards me," Fred said.

"No it wasn't," George said.

"I swear it was me - " Fred started.

"He obviously can't tell the two of you apart so he just gave both of you dirty looks," Hermione said in attempt to settle things.

"Oh, which reminds me," I said to George. "If he asks - we're engaged."

"Okay..." he said with a questioning look. "And why would I tell him that?"

"Because that's what I told him," I said. "He kept trying to get me to go on a date with him and he didn't seem to feel that dating you was enough to keep himself away from me."

"Which explains the look he was giving us," Fred nodded in understanding.

The remainder of the week seemed to fly by and before I knew it we had already had a DA meeting and I'd been to three practices. The DA seemed to have been improving by the minute and I was surprised on how much everyone had remembered over the break we had had just finished up with. However, Quidditch practice had become much more awkward now that I was continuing to get glares from Andrew because I refused to date him under any circumstances. It was unfortunate that time had flown by so quickly because that only meant that I would end up in Occlumency lessons quicker than I wanted.

"You haven't been practicing," Snape said with disapproval as he lowered his wand from the attack on my mind.

"I'm sorry," I said without looking at him. "It's difficult to close off my mind with everything that is going on lately."

"Well you need to figure out a way to do this," he said while glaring at me. "You aren't helping yourself at all and I know your lack of interest isn't helping your brother out at all."

"Wait - so you're going to blame me for him not doing well?" I asked angrily. "How is that fair?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Snape said quickly. "I'm only saying that you both need to help one another and maybe then it'll be an easier task to accomplish."

"Fine," I said bitterly.

"Don't give me that tone," he said darkly. "I'm trying to help you - you're letting your own mind stand in the way of letting you do this!"

"I told you that I'm trying, isn't that good enough?" I said.

"You aren't trying hard enough," he said while looking me in the eye. "I know that you can do this - "

"What if I can't?" I spat. "I'm not capable of doing everything, you know. You should recognize that now that you've seen everything from my past - I'm not good at everything!"

Suddenly his eyes darted back to me and he had a look of realization in his eyes.

"Is that what you're angry about?" he asked suddenly.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You're angry that I'm seeing your past," he said.

"You would be just as angry with me if I did that to you," I said while glaring at him.

"You couldn't do that to me," he said with a smirk. "I know how to block you out."

"Of course you do," I said with an eye roll.

"Why does it bother you that I can see your past?" he asked me as he took a seat behind his desk and placed his head in his hands.

"Because my past isn't exactly something that I'm proud of," I said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"What does it matter?" I asked. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"I'm only asking a question," he said simply.

"You've seen what's happened to me in my past, you should know why I don't want anyone knowing about it," I said.

"Is it because you were an outcast?" he asked quietly.

"I was more than just an outcast," I said. "Look - I don't want to talk about this."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I don't!" I shouted. "This isn't a topic that I am willing to talk about with anyone!"

I started to stand up, but he waved his wand and the door to the room locked and I turned around and glared at him.

"What is your problem?" I demanded.

"Sit down," he said calmly.

I narrowed my eyes and sat down across from him and folded my arms across my chest. He raised an eyebrow at me and I sat back in my chair wishing that this would end already.

"Are you calm now?" he asked.

"Yes," I muttered.

"Emily, I need you to relax," Snape said calmly.

"I am relaxed," I said.

"No you aren't," he said firmly. "And I understand why. I know that you aren't comfortable with the idea that I have the ability to go into your mind and see every memory that you've ever had - it's not a comforting thought, I understand."

"Do you?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"More than you know," he said. "If the roles were reversed then I wouldn't be happy either, but I need you to try to understand that I don't enjoy doing this either."

"Why not?" I muttered. "It isn't much of a struggle from your end."

"Isn't much of a struggle?" he repeated. "Do you honestly think I enjoy looking through your past? Do you think I enjoy having to look at all of the horrible things that you've had to go through to get to this point? It isn't easy for me to do this either Emily - I don't like seeing you get hurt."

I looked down at the ground and suddenly began to feel very guilty. I had never thought of it from his point of view and how he didn't like seeing either of us in pain.

"Emily, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry about everything that has happened to you and that I'm forcing you to relive it, but I'm honestly trying to help you."

"I know," I said quietly.

"I don't want you to get hurt by anyone else," he said. "I'm just trying to prepare you for what is out there. It's going to take some time to learn how to protect yourself and you're going to have to put a lot of effort into doing it, I just need you to be more willing to learn this. Don't be afraid of what I will see - everyone has a past that they aren't proud of."

From then on, I found myself a lot more comfortable with the idea that Snape was invading my mind. Of course, this wasn't exactly an ideal thing for me, but I figured that it wasn't really his fault and I decided to shift the blame to Dumbledore for making him do this. But in the big picture of things, I knew that this was all partly my fault because I hadn't been putting enough effort into something that I had determined was impossible.

* * *

The time after that seemed to fly by like it hardly existed. Although I was now putting more of an effort towards learning Occlumency, it didn't seem to be helping that much because I still found it difficult to block him from my mind. The DA meetings became better and better and Neville seemed to be doing the best of all.

It wasn't until the fourteenth of February that I finally began to take a breath and relax from everything that was going on. George was taking me to Hogsmeade for Valentine's Day and we decided that we wouldn't be giving any gifts to one another since we would be going out somewhere - we hadn't quite decided yet.

"Aren't you going out with Cho?" I asked Harry in the common room that morning.

"Er - yes," he said awkwardly.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do - I've never been on a date before."

"Just talk to her like you would anyone else," I shrugged.

George walked into the room and plopped down onto the couch next to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

"Having lady problems Harry?" George asked.

"Sort of," Harry said.

"Cho Chang, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," Harry nodded.

"Where are you taking her?" he asked.

"Not really sure at the moment," Harry said awkwardly. "Wait - where are you two going?"

"Wherever our love takes us," George said while waving his arm in the air dramatically.

"Here we go with the corny phrases," I laughed. "We aren't sure where we're going either."

"Would you...no, never mind," he said.

"What?" George and I asked at the same time.

"I don't know, I was just thinking," he said nervously. "Maybe you all could stick with us for a bit so it wouldn't be as awkward."

"You think having your sister with you is going to make things less awkward?" George asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Be nice," I said.

"I don't mean it like that," he said defensively. "We could go with him, but I'm just saying that you would think it would be a tad bit awkward having a relative tag along on your first date with someone."

"It isn't awkward," I said. "Besides, it isn't like we would be there the entire time."

Later that day, the three of us met up in the Entrance Hall to wait for Cho. Harry seemed like he was beginning to lose his mind as he began pacing around the room and twitching like a psychopath. Every time someone would walk by us, he seemed to freak out thinking that it was Cho. At one point Snape walked by and raised an eyebrow when he saw Harry staring at him with wide eyes.

"Are you all right Mr. Potter?" Snape asked.

"I'm fine," he said sounding nervous.

"Is there a reason that the three of you are in here?" he asked.

"We're waiting for Harry's date," I said before Harry had a chance to retort.

"Oh," he said seeming to now understand why Harry was so jumpy. "Going to Hogsmeade, are you?"

"That's right," I smiled. "Are you going anywhere today?"

I already knew the answer to the question, but I figured that it would be a fairly good way to distract Harry from his usual panic of the day. Snape raised his eyebrows again and looked like he was going to laugh.

"Me?" he scoffed. "Is that a joke?"

"Oh, I heard a rumor that you were taking Professor Umbridge out," I said with a smirk.

This, of course, wasn't actually a rumor that I had a heard, but I figured that he would find it slightly amusing. Harry and George gave me a questioning look before they turned back to Snape.

"You're hilarious," he said with a straight face. "Speaking of rumors - I've heard one recently that is rather...odd."

"What rumor is that?" I asked.

"It is in regards to the piece of jewelry that is around your fourth finger," Snape said eyeing my left hand and then looking at George suspiciously.

"Oh, you must have heard that we are engaged," I said simply.

"You're what?" he said while giving George the dirtiest look I had ever seen. "You're only fifteen years old Emily."

"We aren't really engaged," I laughed. "I just told some guy that so he would leave me alone."

"And what about the ring?" he asked quickly.

"It's a promise ring," I said. "We aren't getting married."

"Not yet," George said under his breath.

Suddenly Harry's eyes grew wide and then he began to fidget slightly and I couldn't help but notice him smoothing his hair down. That could only mean one thing - Cho was here. I first saw her when she walked around Snape and was eyeing him like he was some sort of disease.

"Er...hello," she said.

"Hi Cho," Harry said.

Snape looked at her and then back at all of us. He seemed to have gotten the hint that we were about to leave, so he began to walk away.

"Have fun at Hogsmeade," he muttered.

Cho raised her eyebrow once he went around the corner and Harry just shrugged.

"He scares me," she said.

We all nodded and George eyed me from next to me and smiled. There was a short, awkward silence before I decided to say something.

"Right, so I guess that we're going to go now," I said.

"Oh, I thought you all were going to go to the Three Broomsticks," Harry said. "We could walk you there - you wouldn't mind would you Cho?"

"No, not at all," she smiled at us.

"We never said we were going - " I started.

"We should probably go now before it gets to crowded," George said over me.

We all began to walk out of the door and George smiled at me. He took me by the hand and we walked behind Harry and Cho who were only giving each other awkward and nervous glances.

"This is weird..." I whispered to George.

"I tried to tell you," he sighed.

"So how long have you two been dating?" Cho asked us suddenly.

"Oh," I said not expecting her to talk to us. "A little over a year."

"That's a long time," she said.

"I suppose so," George said and smirked at me. "It's worth every minute though."

"Oh god," Harry muttered.

"That's so sweet!" Cho said while smiling happily at the two of us like we were the picture of romance.

We walked a little further down the path leading to Hogsmeade before we saw the Quidditch pitch nearby where the rest of the team was practicing. Angelina had told me that I would be allowed to go out today, but I was expected to do just as well during the next practice since I was missing this one. When Cho asked Harry something about him being kicked off of the Quidditch team, George turned to me.

"Do you actually want to go to the Three Broomsticks?" he asked.

"I guess that we should," I said. "I don't want to intrude too much on their date..."

"And I'm sure that Harry wants some time alone with her, if you know what I mean," he winked at me.

"Oh great, now I have that image in my head," I muttered.

Now I suddenly understood why Harry thought it was a bit weird for me to be with George. It was awkward to think of him on a date with anyone - I still saw that little kid that held my hand when we walked through the doors of primary school and now he was ready to go out with girls. It was my internal over-protective sister instinct kicking in - I guess that Harry and I were more alike than I thought.

"Emily, aren't you on the Quidditch team now?" Cho asked me.

"Er - yes," I said. "I took George's place."

"So I guess that you're my new competition," she smiled.

"Don't worry, I'll try to go easy on you," I said jokingly.

She let out a nervous laugh and George raised his eyebrow. We needed to get away from here.

"Oh, there's the Three Broomsticks," I said when it came into view.

"I guess we'll see you two later," George said as we began to walk faster as he dragged me along.

"Have fun!" I shouted back at them.

Before we walked into the Three Broomstick, I glanced back at my brother and got the sudden urge to want to go back over to him. What if Cho wasn't right for him - what if he got too nervous? What if he needed me?

"Maybe we should actually - " I started.

"He's going to be fine Emily," George laughed. "He can take care of himself."

When he walked out of sight, I tried to convince myself that he would be perfectly fine. This is what he needed - he needed to be happy and I was sure that Cho could do that for him. The thing that worried me the most was that she would hurt my brother and I would never forgive myself for not being there to help him. At the same time, I had to remember that I couldn't always be around Harry and that I would have to let him branch out like he has done with me. He deserved that much.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! Considering my inconsistency with putting these chapters up, I'm just going to give you an estimate on when I think I'll have the next one up. I'm going to guess around Friday? Just look for it around then or you could just favorite it so that you'll get an e-mail for when the chapters are put up!**

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	36. Helping Others Out

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 36**

Once George and I finished up our date at the Three Broomsticks, we decided that we would go over to the candy shop to buy something for Fred since we knew that he wasn't going to be doing anything special for Valentine's Day.

"It's a shame really," George said. "He's a great guy - I would know. He just never asks anyone out."

"Do you know if he's interested in anyone?" I asked as I began to place some color-changing jelly beans into a bag.

"He hasn't actually said anything," he said. "But I'm pretty sure that he fancies Angelina."

"Why won't he ask her out on a date then?" I asked. "I'm sure that she wouldn't say no to him."

"Who knows," George shrugged. "Maybe if someone else would talk to him about it…"

He gave me a sideways look and I let out a sigh - I knew where this was going. Now I was going to have to play match-maker so that Fred could be happy. This wasn't going to be exactly an easy task to accomplish considering that Fred probably wouldn't listen to me if he didn't listen to George to begin with.

"Would you please talk to him?" he asked gently.

When George put on his puppy dog face, I knew that there was no way that I could ever tell him no. He's a manipulative little git…but I still loved him regardless.

"Fine," I sighed. "I guess that I could try…"

"Thanks babe," he smiled and kissed me. "Have I told you that you're the most wonderful person that I've ever met?"

"No, but it wouldn't hurt to say it more often," I smirked.

Once we finished picking out some more candy for Fred, we decided that we would walk back to the castle. On our way back, I convinced George to go by and see if Harry was doing all right on his date with Cho, but he made me promise that we wouldn't get involved at all.

"Do you know where they went off to?" I asked him.

"No idea," he shrugged. "Probably somewhere awful knowing Cho's taste."

I gave a quick glance around the area and spotted the place that I knew they would be in. It was a small teashop located near the Three Broomsticks. The shop was overly decorated for Valentine's Day and the mere sight of it made me sick with how much pink was around it. If I ever had to imagine what Umbridge's house would look like, this would be an exact match to it.

"We aren't going in there," George said eyeing the place as if it was some sort of horrible disease.

"Trust me, I don't want to," I said. "Maybe we could just pass by and see if they're there through the window."

We nodded in agreement and walked past it and I noticed them sitting next to the window for a split second before they were out of sight again. I couldn't see exactly what had been going on, but I couldn't imagine that Harry would be enjoying himself in a place like this. Who knows though, people can change if they really want to be around someone else.

"The poor bloke," George said. "Being dragged into a place like that must be dreadful."

"What if I asked you to go in there?" I asked.

"I would question your sanity," he answered honestly.

I laughed and we continued to head on towards the castle. He held onto my hand and we followed behind some of the other couples that were headed the same way. Not even a minute later, I heard someone walking quickly behind us and they sounded like they were crying heavily. Both George and I looked at each other questioningly before we glanced back to see Cho stomping her way through everyone with tears streaming down her face.

"Oh here we go," George muttered.

"Cho!" I called to her as she tried to pass us.

She attempted to wipe the tears from her face when she turned to me and she looked incredibly nervous and surprised to see me there.

"Oh - hi E-Emily," she said while some more tears escaped from her eyes.

"What happened?" I asked. "Did Harry say something bad to you?"

"No - I just need to go," she said quickly and began to speed up her pace.

Before I knew it, she was lost in the crowd of people walking back leaving both George and me confused about what had just happened.

"What was that about?" George asked.

"Who knows," I said. "It's hard to tell if Harry said anything to her - Cho cries at the drop of a hat these days. I guess I can't blame her, but the girl needs to calm herself down.

It wasn't long before we made it back to the castle where we found Fred and Lee talking to a group of third years in the Gryffindor common room. I had a sickening feeling that he was doing something that Hermione would be seriously angry about, but who was I to say anything to him?

"Oh, look who showed back up early?" Fred said as he walked over to us. "How was Hogsmeade - filled with the corny, snogging couples that are there every Valentine's Day?"

"Of course," I said.

"That's why I don't do those sort of things," he said as he handed a box to a third-year boy that was standing next to him. "Now take this carefully - we aren't sure of the side-effects yet."

The boy nodded enthusiastically and then ran off to join some of his other friends that were holding similar looking boxes in hand. The only thing I could do was feel pity for Madam Pomprey because I knew that it was going to be her that was going to have to deal with the after effects of all of this.

When I looked back at George, he was giving me a look and pointing at Fred who was now packing some things away in a larger box nearby. I shook my head rapidly, but he starting nodding his head and smiling. Why would he want me to talk to Fred now of all times?

"Well, I'm going to be right back," George said while looking at me intently. "I need to get something from my room."

"Okay," Fred said. "Hurry back though - we need to see how these new products react on these kids."

He nodded and then walked over to the stairs. Just before he was out of sight he mouthed "just do it" and then walked away. I rolled my eyes and glanced over at Fred who had now just plopped onto the couch and was looking over at the third-years like he had just won the grand prize.

"You aren't going to tell Hermione about this, right?" he asked suddenly.

"Have I ever told Hermione about the things that you two do?" I asked as I sat next to him.

"No," he smiled. "So did you have a good Valentine's Day?"

"Sure," I said. "We went to the Three Broomsticks."

"I would have thought the two of you would have gone to Madam Putifoot's Teashop," he said with a smirk.

"Yeah right," I said with a look of disgust. "But Harry went in there."

"Really?" he said in surprise. "Who did he go with?"

"Cho Chang," I said.

"It's about time that he said something to her," he said. "He's always looks like he's lost his marbles when she's around."

"I've noticed," I laughed.

We watched as the third years happily ingested the candies that Fred gave them and I shook my head. There wasn't an immediate reaction, but I knew that the end result would be awful knowing the normal things that the twins came up with.

"So why didn't you go out with anyone today?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "It's not really my thing…"

"Oh come on," I said with a small smile. "It's a lovely holiday."

"Not really," he said. "I've always viewed it as a holiday that reminds all of the single people out there how single they really are."

"Well that's miserable," I said with a grimace. "But maybe you could change that."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Why don't you ask someone out?" I asked. "I know that you've been eyeing Angelina."

"What - no," he said as his face began to grow red. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't play dumb," I laughed. "But seriously, you should just ask her out on a date. I'm sure that she would love it."

"Eh, I don't know," he said while scratching his head nervously. "I don't think that she looks at me like that."

"Sure she does," I said. "I know that she misses being around you."

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"She's always saying how she misses you being on the team," I told him. "You always made her laugh."

"George and I both did that," he shrugged.

"But she didn't say anything about George," I said.

"That's only because she was talking to you," he said. "She probably figured that you would knock her upside the head with a bat if she mentioned missing your boyfriend."

"No I wouldn't," I laughed. "Besides, you went out with her to the Yule Ball last year and I know that she had a great time."

"Yeah, but it was different then," he said.

"No it wasn't," I said. "Just take a chance, I'm sure that you won't regret it."

Just as he went to say something else, one of the third-year girls screamed as she began to sprout extra eyes all over her face and arms. The boy next to her began to grow ears all over his arms and the pair looked like a pretty frightening sight.

"Is that supposed to happen?" I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"Not exactly," he grimaced.

A moment later, I heard footsteps coming down from the dormitories and George suddenly appeared. He gave me a look that clearly said 'did you talk to him?' and I gave him a small smile in return. When he caught sight of the third years, he raised an eyebrow and looked at them.

"I think that one needs some work," he said.

"I have to agree with that mate," Fred said. "We better make sure that Granger doesn't see this one - we'll be in detention for ages."

"I'll go see if I can keep her distracted," I said. "I'm sure that she's back by now - it's nearly time for dinner anyway."

"Thanks babe," George said.

I gave them all a wave and then quickly walked out of the common room to leave them to their mess that they had created with the other students. When I made it down towards the Great Hall I spotted Hermione sitting with Harry at the Gryffindor table. It's a good thing that they hadn't gone directly up to the tower when they got back.

"Hey," I said as I sat down next to them. "How are things?"

"Just great," Harry muttered sarcastically.

"Oh yeah," I said. "I meant to ask - what was wrong with Cho? I saw her running off on my way back up here."

"A long story short," he said. "She started talking about all of her past boyfriends and then she wanted to start talking about Cedric. I really wasn't in the mood to discuss it or see her crying anymore, so I told her no and she ran out of the teashop we were in."

"Wow," I said. "Why was she doing all of that?"

"It's his own fault really," Hermione said with an eye roll. "He told Cho that he wanted to meet with me in the Three Broomsticks."

"Have I taught you nothing about girls Harry, honestly?" I sighed and shook my head. "Why would you do something like that?"

"I didn't see the big deal," Harry said innocently. "I was just being honest - Hermione did ask me to meet with her."

"He could have worded it differently," Hermione sighed. "He wasn't being smart."

"How many times are going to tell me that Hermione - I get it!" Harry said irritably. "I'll make a mental note to never do that again…"

"So what were you two meeting for anyway?" I asked.

"Oh, I wanted you to meet with me too," Hermione said sounding disgruntled as she lowered her voice. "I had Rita Skeeter with me."

"Rita Skeeter?" I asked in disbelief. "What for?"

"Well, I wanted her to get an interview with both of you," Hermione said. "But I couldn't find you."

"Didn't you say that you were in the Three Broomsticks?" I asked. "I was in there too."

"It was very crowded, so I must have missed you," she sighed.

"Why did you want _her_ to interview us for?" I asked.

"Because she is the one that started this whole mess," Hermione said. "If anyone can convince the public that you all are telling the truth it's her."

"Even if she wrote an amazing piece on what really happened that night, there's no way that the _Prophet_ would publish it - Fudge wouldn't allow it."

"We aren't sending it to the _Prophet_," Harry said. "We're sending it to _The Quibbler_."

"_The Quibbler_?" I asked. "Hermione - you don't even like that magazine, you said that everything in it is rubbish."

"It normally is," Hermione admitted. "But Luna and her father are huge supporters of the two of you. Besides, we don't really have a shot anywhere else."

"Why do you think that people would even read this article anyway?" I asked. "The whole world thinks that we are a couple of nutters."

"Because it is the first time that either of you have opened up about what really happened," Hermione said. "Anyone would be interested in hearing what you two have to say."

"That's not saying that they'll believe us," I said.

"That's not true," Hermione said. "Especially with Rita Skeeter writing it. Even if this piece doesn't have everyone believing you, I'm sure that you'll gain some more supporters."

The mere thought of the real story being printed anywhere was insane. Everyone in the wizarding world thought that the two of us were crazy, so I had never imagined that there would be any need for this sort of thing. To be honest, I believed that it could really go either one of two ways - it could be a complete success and people might start believing us or it would be a laughing stock that would promote more mockery.

"Which reminds me," Hermione said. "I wrote down some of the questions that Skeeter was asking Harry and I want you to send a letter to her telling her what your response is. I think that it is important to have both of you included in all of this."

"Do I have to?" I groaned. "My story isn't going to be any different than what Harry told her."

"Just do it," Hermione demanded.

"Fine," I said. "No need to be so bossy about it…"

For the next few days, I worked on answering all of the questions and managed to get the letter out in time for Rita Skeeter to write the article for the _Quibbler_. The only thing that I could worry about for the remainder of the week was my first game that was coming up. Judging by the practices that the team had been having, I couldn't imagine that we were going to make it out of the game with a winning score. I couldn't determine what exactly was the worse of the teams' problems - their inability to work together or the lack of skill throughout. I am never much of one to gloat, but I was saddened to realize that I was actually one of the better players on the team - which is bad if you really think about it.

When Saturday finally came around, I felt like I was going to vomit due to the stress. Angelina had taken to talking to me a lot about her stress with the team and I could now fully appreciate her pain. When we were walking out of the Great Hall that morning to head out to the field, it took every ounce of energy to not run back towards Harry and George and beg them to not let me go.

"You're going to be fine love," George told me. "Just imagine that the Bludger is Goyle's head and you should be fantastic."

When I stepped out onto the field, I noticed the concerned and unconfident look on each of our faces - we knew that we had a very slim chance of winning this game. Once we were in flight, I could practically feel the blood pounding through my body and I felt faint. The only thing that gave me hope was that this would all be over soon if Ginny or the other Seeker could find the Snitch.

Once the Quaffle was in the air and the Bludgers were flying all around the stadium, the game had begun. For the most part, I seemed to be sticking close to Andrew who was flying after the Bludgers. It didn't take an expert to know that Andrew wasn't a very good flier and I was honestly waiting for the moment when he would fall off of his broom, but luckily that didn't happen. Halfway through the game, we all had to have a temporary stop when he managed to swing the bat and miss the Bludger completely and hit himself in the face instead.

"We're hopeless," Angelina said with her eye closed.

"I really need to find this Snitch," Ginny murmured next to me.

"Please do," I said. "We're already losing by a long shot."

When we were in the air again, I tried to keep my focus on the Bludger and the members of the other team. When one of the Hufflepuff Chaser grabbed a hold of the Quaffle, I immediately flew towards the Bludger and whacked the ball right towards the Chaser. Suprisingly enough, it flew right into the Quaffle and it knocked it out of his hands.

"Wow, look at that shot!" Lee Jordan announced. "Seems like at least one of the new players knows what she's doing."

To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing - I wasn't even aiming for the Quaffle. My original plan was to have the Bludger go in front of him to knock him off of his path, but this seemed to work out nicely since it fell right into Angelina's hands where she made the first goal for Gryffindor.

Unfortunately, that was the one and only goal that Gryffindor made before Ginny caught the Snitch later on in the game. Unfortunately for us, we still managed to lose by ten points because of how many goals Hufflepuff had made against us before the Snitch was caught.

"You did a good job," Harry said as we walked back towards the castle.

"No I didn't," I laughed. "I was awful."

"Trust me, you were a lot better than the other players," he said.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't much of a compliment because of how awful everyone else had done, so I just took it for what it was worth. Ginny had actually done really well as a Seeker, but it was obvious to everyone - including her - that Harry was a better player. I knew that he would have given anything to have played the game himself today, but the life-time ban forbid him to do anything of the sort.

"Ron's tried to resign again," Ginny said when she caught up to us.

"Again?" Harry asked.

"He does that a lot," I sighed. "Just about once per practice actually."

"He knows that he doesn't do well," Ginny said miserably. "But Angelina won't let him leave."

"Ron can be really good if he wants to," I said. "I'm just going to hope that it's his nerves getting the best of him."

"I think that is what Angelina is telling herself too," Ginny said. "And I hope for everyone's sake that the two of you are right."

With all of the disappointment in the game, I found it very difficult to make myself go to sleep that night. When I laid down in my bed, I could only think that this was going to be the beginning of an awful season of Quidditch.

"Emily, you really should stop worrying about it," Hermione said as she went to turn the light off. "It's only a game."

"Sure it is," I said. "But that's not how everyone else looks at it. Quidditch means a lot to the people that are on it and especially to the ones that aren't even allowed to be on it. I just feel like we're letting a lot of people down."

"You have other things that you should be worried about," Hermione said. "For example - don't you have one of your lessons with Snape coming up?"

My eyes flickered over to Pavarti who was pulling down her sheets and I knew that we weren't exactly free to discuss these lessons with her around.

"Yes I do," I said. "What's your point?"

"Shouldn't you be preparing for those lessons?" she asked slowly.

"I'm working on it Hermione," I sighed.

"Just concentrate," she said. "I know that you're going to be able to do it if you really put your mind to it."

"Thanks," I murmured.

When she shut the lights off, I let out a short sigh before laying my head back and closing my eyes. I tried to empty my mind of all thought and emotion and I found it easier than I thought it would be now that everything around me was quiet. For a moment, I finally thought I grasped it until I suddenly remembered the article that was due to come out in the _Quibbler_ and everything began to flood my mind again just before I fell into a much needed sleep.

* * *

**Thanks for reading, I hope that you liked it! I would like to apologize for the lateness of this chapter, but I assure you that I actually did have it ready on Friday like I said, but I had the issue of not having Internet on the computer that I typed the chapter up on. I just got a computer in my room, but it took a little while to get all of the cords together to give the computer access to the Internet. Things like this shouldn't be happening very often from now on and I assure you, for some of you that were wondering, everything is okay and I am alive and well! The next chapter should be up and ready by Tuesday/Wednesday!**

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	37. Letters and Dreams

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 37**

There was a long stone corridor that stood in front of me. There wasn't a single thing on the walls and the only thing that could be seen in plain sight was a large, black door that was at the end of the hall - I had seen this door many times before, but I had never felt as excited about it as I did now. Somehow I had a strange feeling that I would get close enough to actually see what was behind it. Harry had said that he thinks it is the Department of Mysteries, but neither of us could be sure unless we made it past the door.

When I finally found myself face to face with it, I took a hold of the smooth handle to the door and began to pull on it. It was a heavy door and it took me a minute to get it open, but I didn't get too far before I was jerked into consciousness where I found myself laying in the girls dormitories at Hogwarts once again. Lavender had just stepped into the room and had closed the door too loudly - that must have been what woke me up.

"Sorry," she said quietly as she walked over to her bed.

It took every ounce of my will power to not walk over there and hit her upside the head. It was all because of her that I would have to spend another day wondering what was hidden behind that wretched door.

It wasn't until Monday morning that we got any news regarding our interview with Rita Skeeter or anything else for that matter. When I woke up that morning, I walked into the Great Hall early to find several owls flying down to me to deliver a stack full of letters and one magazine in the mix.

"What's all this?" Neville asked in surprise when he sat down next to me.

I unrolled the magazine to see my face and Harry's plastered on the front along with the heading 'HARRY AND EMILY POTTER SPEAK OUT AT LAST ABOUT THE NIGHT THEY SAW HIM RETURN.'

"Is that the Rita Skeeter interview that you told me about?" Neville asked.

"I guess so," I said in amazement. "But how does that explain all of the letters?"

"Emily, honestly," Neville rolled his eyes. "Think about it - they're letters from the readers."

"Of course," I said. "Don't know why I didn't realize it before - go on and open some of them."

I picked up the nearest one to me and ripped it open with ease. I quickly read through it to discover that this person may have actually found us convincing.

Although I've been hearing about you two being a pair of nutters for ages now, I found that you two very convincing in this interview and I applaud you for stepping up and telling your story.

"Wow, I can't believe it," I said as I skimmed through the rest of the letter. "This person believe us! What about yours?"

"I think it's best that you don't read this one," he said awkwardly as he crumbled up the parchment and grabbed for another letter.

"That bad?" I asked.

"You could say that," he said.

We went through several more - most with mixed views on what we had to say - before Harry came into the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione following close by. Their eyebrows all raised when they saw the large mound of envelopes in front of Neville and me.

"What's this?" Harry asked as he took a seat on the other side of me.

"Letters from readers," I said proudly. "Rita Skeeter's article on us was published in the Quibbler."

"Excellent!" Hermione said excitedly. "What are the people saying?"

"See for yourself," I said. "I'll warn you though - some of them aren't pleasant."

By the time breakfast was nearly over, we had all gone through most of the pile and discovered that there were a fair share of people that were now on our side because they read what we had to say. It was going to be a good day today, I could just sense it - nothing could bring my mood down now. Well, except for -

"What is going on over here?" Umbridge said as she walked up to our table.

"We're reading," I said. "Is that a problem?"

"Don't get smart with me Miss Potter - " she started.

"I'm sorry, maybe I should dumb myself down a bit so you can understand," I said irritably.

"Five points from Gryffindor," she snapped. "Now explain why you have a mountain of letters on your table."

"It's because of our interview," Harry said in a matter-of-fact way. "We had one with Rita Skeeter - I'm sure that you've heard of her."

That was when she spotted the Quibbler sitting in front of Fred and George and she quickly snatched it away from them and read the headline. Her eyes immediately grew large and her face went about as red as my hair. Without even saying a word to us, she stormed off with the magazine in hand.

"This is bad," Ron said. "She's going to tell the Minister."

"How is that bad?" Harry asked. "It's exactly what we want, isn't it?"

"Exactly," I smiled. "And if she acts out against this then it proves that the Ministry is trying to withhold information from the public."

"Don't we already know that?" Ron asked.

"Well, yes," I admitted. "But this will just confirm any doubts and then maybe even some other people will see what they are trying to do."

I don't think that I've ever made a better call than that one before. By noon that day there was already a brand new decree posted throughout the school banning all students from having access to the Quibbler. It was pretty pathetic to be quite honest.

"This is brilliant," Harry smiled. "I don't think my day could get any better."

"And why is that Mister Potter," a cold voice said behind us.

When I turned around Snape was standing behind us looking over so that he could read the newest decree that Umbridge had put to order. To be honest, I don't think that I've ever seen him look so blunt in his entire life.

"I have to go to class," Harry said quickly and walked away without another word.

George, who was standing on my other side, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and ran away like Snape was carrying the Black Plague with him. It's funny how he affects the people around me.

"What is this about?" he asked me as he looked at the parchment on the wall. "I am going to go ahead and assume that this is your doing."

"And why would you assume something like that?" I asked.

"Because anything unusual that happens in this school has a weird way of tracing back to either you or your brother," he said honestly.

"Very true," I said. "And yes, this new decree is related to me."

"Interesting, how exactly?" he asked.

"Have you had a chance to see the Quibbler?" I asked him.

"Of course not," he said. "And I'm pretty sure that I have no chance at this point unless I want Dolores to cut my head off."

"Well there's a particularly intriguing front page article," I said. "It involves something with a certain pair of twins and a certain event that took place last year before school was let out."

For a moment he just looked at me and then he raised an eyebrow. Students walking by us just glanced over and looked like wanted to sprint away from Snape as quickly as they could - it's weird, I guess that I've looked over this effect that he's had on others for a while now...

"Who wrote this article?" he asked.

"Rita Skeeter," I said.

"Interesting," he said in surprise. "Was it the truth that she wrote this time?"

"Surprisingly enough, it was," I said with a smile. "She might have met up with us during the last trip to Hogsmeade."

"Why would she do something like that?" he asked. "Especially after all of the trouble that she caused the pair of you last year."

"Hermione Granger might have convinced her that she didn't have any other choice," I said.

"Hermione Granger?" he said. "That seems like an odd thing for her to do."

"Not really," I said. "She does everything she can to help us out."

"I guess it can only be but so much help if the magazine that it's been published in is banned from the school," he said. "Then again, that makes it all more interesting."

"That's what I was thinking," I said. "I'm nearly positive that if she hadn't banned it then people might not have believed it."

"And there more apt to believe it now that it has been banned," he said. "People are going to wonder why she would do it in the first place because they normally don't care about such small things - especially if they believed that it was all a complete lie."

Just at that moment, a certain woman in pink turned into the partially crowded corridor that we were standing in and immediately made a b-line for us when she noticed us standing there.

"So you stir the potion twice clockwise, not counterclockwise?" I said when she came in earshot.

"Correct," he said with a small twitch of a smile. "Other than that the potion was completely fine."

"What is going on here?" Umbridge demanded when she stopped beside us.

"I was asking him a question about potions class, is that all right?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Severus, is that what she was doing?" she said without even looking my way.

"Of course," he said in his usual blunt manner. "What else could we possibly be talking about Dolores?"

She glared at both of us suspiciously. The funny thing was that there was no way for her to prove that we were lying right now and we knew fully well that she had caught us in the act of breaking one of her various rules. To be honest, I couldn't care less about what she would have done either way.

"Well, I do believe I have to go to class," I said with an awful smile at her. "Is there anything else that you would like to ask?"

"Not at the moment Miss Potter," she said darkly.

"Have a lovely day," I said. "Goodbye Professor Snape - thank you for the help."

"Indeed," he smirked.

When I walked down the corridor a ways, I glanced back and saw Umbridge speaking with Snape and, from what I could tell, it didn't look like a very pleasant conversation. I wanted to laugh because I knew that she was only looking for ways to get me into more trouble than I was already in and it was all because we were calling her bluff.

The next couple of days went by wonderfully. Every day we seemed to be getting more people on our side because we had decided to finally let the truth out and it couldn't have gotten any better for Harry and me. We had even gotten Seamus on our side by now and he was one of the people that opposed us the very most. It was difficult to say if we had convinced Lavender any differently because she always seemed to avoid me anyway, so I never heard her point of view on the matter. Cho even managed to forgive Harry for his behavior during their Valentine's Day date because of how touching she found the interview to be.

The thing that made everything even better was how much Umbridge hated what had happened. We had spoken out against the Ministry and she seemed to be taking it as a personal insult against her because she seemed angrier than ever. She was taking her anger out on everyone and I felt that it was because she was feeling powerless now that people were starting to not trust the Ministry as much anymore - not that everyone was believing us, but I knew it was making her uncomfortable that we had convinced anyone that we weren't as insane as the Ministry portrayed us to be.

Fred and George even went as far as to install a blown up picture of the Quibbler's cover in the Gryffindor common room that would randomly shout things like "DOWN WITH THE MINISTRY" and "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW UMBRIDGE?" It was funny for a good while, but then it began to malfunction and would only shout bits and pieces of the original lines.

"Maybe you should take the charm off of it," Neville said.

"Probably," George shrugged. "But I still think that it's clever...and I know that Umbridge would hate it if she ever saw it which is inspiration enough to keep it up."

"I like the way you think," Fred smirked. "But I suppose that we should at least shut it up for a bit."

He spent a minute waving his wand so that it would stop shouting random things. I wouldn't doubt it if he had it up and running again by the next day because of how much they both loved their creation. But I was happy that they were going to make it stop for now because I had an awful headache.

"I'm going to go on upstairs to bed," Harry said while rubbing his temple. "I'm not feeling well..."

"Me either," I mumbled. "My head is killing me...I think that I've heard too much of that thing of yours Fred and George."

"Sorry," George mumbled.

"It's fine," Harry shrugged. "I'll just sleep it off..."

"Goodnight," I said.

When he went upstairs and was out of sight, I suddenly began to wonder if it was weird that we were both having headaches at once. No...I'm sure it was just a coincidence. After all, we had both been listening to that picture of Fred and George's for a while now and that's bound to give anyone an aching head.

"I'm hungry," Fred said when he finished with the picture.

"Me too..." George said. "Do you suppose that the elves have any leftover food."

"I'm sure that they do," I said. "Hermione is always going on how much they overwork themselves, so I'm sure they made something extra."

"Excellent," Fred smirked. "George - let's go."

"Emily, do you want to go?" George asked.

"I think I might stick around here," I said. "My head hurts too much right now."

"Do you want me to stay back?" George asked.

"You've got to be kidding me," Fred mumbled under his breath.

"I'll be fine," I smiled.

"Okay," George said while glaring at Fred. "I'll be back in a few - don't get handsy with her Longbottom."

Neville laughed and then the two of them went on their way. Once they were gone, I leaned back in my chair and let out a deep breath. I felt like my brain was trying to beat its way through my skull.

"Are you okay?" Neville asked. "You look pale."

"I'm ginger," I said while rubbing my temples. "I always look pale."

"Not like this," he said. "You look as white as a sheet."

"I just have a headache, that's all," I said.

"Do you need to go to the hospital wing?" he asked.

"No, I should be fine," I said as I closed my eyes. "Just give me a minute..."

I tried to relax to see if it would help at all, but it wasn't easy to do that when you felt like your head was two seconds from exploding. Just when I felt like I was about to go on to the hospital wing with Neville, I suddenly discovered that I was no longer in the Gryffindor common room.

I was standing in a very poor lit room and it was really quiet. In front of me was a chair that I was gripping onto with my extraordinarily pale looking hands - Neville was right, I did look sick...then I noticed a man that was sitting on the ground in front of me. He was kneeling down and not looking me in the eye.

"I apologize Master," the man said suddenly. "I ask that you please forgive me for my actions."

"I never said that I blamed you Rookwood," I said in a very cold way.

I couldn't believe this man could be so helpless, what good was he to me if he couldn't do this simple task? If it wasn't for me needing him elsewhere, I would kill him right on the spot.

"Avery told me that Bode would be able to remove it," I said trying to hold in my anger.

"There was no way that Bode could have done it," the man said quietly. "He would have known this himself and I believe that is why he fought so hard against the Imperius Curse that Malfoy placed on him."

"Very well," I said irritably. "I suppose that this was out of your hands Rookwood."

"I apologize - " the man started.

"You may leave now," I interrupted him. "I need you to go collect more information regarding the Department - send Avery to me."

"I will my Lord," Rookwood nodded.

The man quickly stood up and nearly ran out of the room. Fury rose up and me and I suddenly spent a spell hurtling at the wall where it left a huge scorch mark - why can't they just do as they are told and give the information to me?

I walked slowly over towards a nearby desk and looked up at a broken mirror that was sitting against the wall. Standing in front of me was the reflection of a man paler than snow with blood red eyes that looked deep into the depth of my being.

"NOOOOOOO!" I screamed.

"Emily!" I heard someone shout.

I felt hands on me and I suddenly began to swing my fist into the air to stop him from getting near me.

"Don't TOUCH me!" I screamed.

Everything around me went quiet and I held my hands to my face for a moment. When my heart rate went down, I opened up my eyes slowly and found myself sitting in a place that it took me a moment to realize was the Gryffindor common room. In front of me sat a wide-eyed Neville who looked terrified.

"Emily?" he said shakily.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

Before I could stop myself, I felt the tears falling down my face and Neville immediately jumped up and pulled me into an embrace. I began to sob uncontrollably into his should and I wasn't entirely sure why, but I felt scared and alone.

"It's okay Emily," Neville said quietly. "You're safe here..."

"It was him - I saw him again," I cried. "I was there and he's furious - he's planning something else."

"Emily - " he started.

I heard the door open up nearby and something heavy dropped on the floor with a splat.

"What's wrong?" George said.

He came running over to me and Neville backed away so that George could sit next to me. When I looked up at him, he looked more concerned than I had seen him in a long time and I suddenly felt guilty for doing this to him and everyone else around me.

"She saw something again," Neville said. "You know...from You-Know-Who's mind."

"Was someone killed?" he asked me.

"No..." I murmured. "But I have a feeling that someone is about to be...but it isn't one of our people."

George looked at me and then pulled me into a hug. Fred, who was standing off nearby, seemed to be really lost as to what he was supposed to be doing.

"Are you okay babe?" George asked.

"I've been better," I choked out.

He let out a small, strained laugh and then let out a sigh.

"I thought that you were taking Occlumency lessons to stop this," Fred said in a hollow voice.

"I am," I said quietly. "But I haven't been doing very well on them."

"Emily, you need to try to concentrate on that," Fred said sounding extremely worried. "This is serious - look what it's doing to you."

"I'm trying," I said sounding more irritated than I intended to. "It's not as easy as it sounds Fred."

I shouldn't have been angry with him because I knew that he wasn't trying to be critical, he was only concerned for my safety and piece of mind. But somehow I felt like it was a good thing that I had seen this particular thing because I knew now what Voldemort was up to and I now knew that he was one step closer to finding the weapon that he was looking for.

A couple of weeks after the vision I had seen, I found myself at more of a disadvantage knowing that I had an Occlumency lesson the following day. Harry was in there now and I knew that he wasn't going to be doing very well given what had recently happened to us. Harry told me the day after the incident that he had seen the same thing while he was asleep and had the same fears that I did - Voldemort was becoming even more dangerous by the day.

At the moment, Hermione and I were sitting in the Great Hall finishing up the last of our History of Magic homework that I had put off to the last minute. To be honest, I was only copying the work off of her now that she had come to the conclusion that I was helpless with that subject.

"This isn't going to help you," she sighed. "You need to start listening in class."

"Hermione, you are the only person that listens in that class," I said. "But thanks for the notes anyway."

"You're just lucky that I listen," she muttered. "Otherwise over half of the class would be failing right now."

Just as I began to write the last part of the homework, I heard a horrible scream come from the room next to me that made me jump in my seat and send ink flying onto the table.

"What was that?" Hermione asked with wide eyes.

Without answering, we both jumped out of our seats and ran into the Entrance Hall along with some of the other students that has heard this pathetic cry. When we got there, the first thing I saw was the crouching figure of Professor Trelawney crying on the floor of the Entrance Hall and Umbridge standing above her looking like she had just won a prize.

What has she done now?

...  
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	38. Caught in the Act

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 38**

"What's going on?" Hermione said to me.

"Your guess is as good as mine," I breathed.

Within seconds of hearing Professor Trelawney's wails, nearly the entire school had managed to gather around the Entrance Hall to get a good look of what was going on. I was even surprised to see Harry and Snape coming from Occlumency lessons to find out what Umbridge had done to this poor, helpless woman that was crying on the ground with two suitcases by her side.

"This can't be h-happening," Professor Trelawney cried. "I don't believe it."

"You can't honestly tell me that you didn't see this coming," Umbridge scoffed. "Then again, I guess that you really can't See anything anyway. Your horrible performance as a teacher and a Seer has forced me to do this."

"I can't l-leave Hogwarts," she sobbed. "This is my h-home, I've lived here for s-sixteen years!"

"You aren't welcome here anymore," Umbridge said coldly. "You have been sacked and I suggest you leave now before I am forced to make you leave on my terms."

Everyone in the area was completely silent, all staring in shock at the scene in front of them. Sure, I never thought that Professor Trelawney was a good teacher, but this isn't something that I would wish on anyone. Umbridge had no right to treat anyone in this manner, but I was so stunned by everything that I found myself speechless along with the rest of the crowd. The only person that seemed to be able to react was Professor McGonagall who was quickly making her way through the crowd towards Trelawney and Umbridge. When she arrived at the scene, she immediately went to Trelawney's aid and helped to stand her upright and attempted to calm her nerves.

"Everything is going to be fine Sybill," McGonagall said soothingly. "Let's just get your things and go back upstairs."

The slight twitch in Umbridge's face made me realize how angry that small comment that McGonagall had made - the smile wasn't fooling anyone anymore. Then again it wasn't exactly a secret that the two women loathed one another.

"I'm sorry Minerva," Umbridge said in a sickly sweet voice. "I don't believe that you have the authority to say such a thing to her. I am the High Inquisitor at this school and - "

"I'm sorry Dolores," a booming voice came from the other side of the room. "But I do believe that Minerva is acting on my orders."

Everyone's attention turned to the Dumbledore who was gazing out at the scene like it was the most normal thing in the world. Although it had a been a good while since I had seen him, he didn't seem to have changed very much in appearance. His heard was just as long and white as ever and his half-moon spectacles were perched on his crooked nose as he gazed around at us all. He had a pleasant smile across his face, but the only thing that seemed to be missing was usual gleam that he had in his eyes. Even from this distance, I could see that they had darkened over time with all of the added stress and work that he was given.

"Your orders?" Umbridge scoffed. "I have ordered this woman from the building due to her inability to teach - I have every right to do this and - "

"I am well aware of your rights Dolores," Dumbledore said without his smile faltering. "You have the power to sack my teachers, but you don't have any right to send them away. As far as I am concerned, Sybill is as welcome here now as she was the day that I hired her."

"Is that so?" Umbridge said coldly. "And what do you think is going to happen when I appoint a new Divination teacher? There will be no room for her once she is replaced."

"I don't think that should be an issue," Dumbledore said. "I've already appointed a new Divination teacher and I do believe that he wouldn't find himself all that comfortable in her lodgings."

If I had ever thought that Trelawney's eyes looked large, it was nothing compared to what they were now. I wasn't sure if she was more shocked of the fact that she was allowed to stay on the grounds or that Dumbledore had already replaced her.

"What do you mean that you appointed another teacher?" Umbridge said with a slight snarl. "Under Education Decree Number -"

"The Ministry may only appoint a teacher for the position if I am unable to find a suitable candidate," Dumbledore stated. "I don't believe that would be necessary at this point - and I do believe that now is as good of a time as any to introduce our new staff member."

Everyone was still speechless and the room was completely silent until we suddenly heard the sound of what seemed to be horse hoofs hitting the ground, but I was probably mistaken. It wasn't until a moment later that I realized that I was right, but it wasn't exactly a horse that was making the noise.

"I would like to introduce Firenze," Dumbledore said. "I believe that he is well fit for the job.

I don't think that Umbridge could have looked any more disgusted with the centaur than she did right now. I had always heard that she wasn't fond of any sort of half-breed creature and right now that was more evident than ever.

"I am honored to have this position," Firenze said while looking around at all of us. "And I would like to thank Dumbledore for offering me this job."

Without even thinking about what I was doing, I immediately began to clap and the first look I got was from Snape who raised an eyebrow at me. Before I knew it, the entire area was filled with the sound of applause and Umbridge looked even more furious than before. She didn't even wait for us all to become silent again before she stomped out of the area.

...

The fact that Dumbledore had finally had some sort of confrontation with Umbridge seemed to be the talk of the school for the next whole week. The only thing anyone could think of was what was going to happen now and how Umbridge was going to react to this newly appointed Divination teacher that she hadn't approved of.

Two days after Trelawney was sacked, we had the privilege of going to one of Firenze's first classes. It was actually a bit confusing at first because we were no longer going to be having Divination in the North Tower anymore because Firenze was not able to climb up the ladder to get there. So, instead of going to our usual place, our class met a room just across from the Entrance Hall. However, we weren't prepared at all for what we had walked into.

Instead of the usual decoration of desks and chairs that the classrooms normally had, we were surrounded by various trees and earth on the ground that made it appear as though we were in the Forbidden Forest. When I saw Firenze standing in the middle of all of this, I realized that he must have done this so that he would feel more at home while he had to teach here.

"Ah, Harry Potter," Firenze said. "And Emily Potter - it has been so long."

He smiled and we held out our hands to shake his. Although he seemed to be trying his best to be happy, I could somehow see something in his eyes that told me differently. I had a strange feeling that this job wasn't exactly ideal for him.

"How are things?" I asked him. "Are the others doing well?"

"I wouldn't know," he said with a twitch in his tail. "I haven't seen them since I accepted this job."

"Why is that?" I asked him.

"They do not approve of my mingling with your kind," Firenze said with his eyes narrowing. "But I wish to help Albus Dumbledore any chance that I can."

"We appreciate it very much," Harry said honestly.

Firenze nodded in thanks and then continued to walk around his newly decorated classroom. For the remainder of our time in there he spoke of all of the things that he planned on teaching us and how misguided we really were. Apparently we weren't the only ones that felt as though Professor Trelawney had no idea what she was talking about. According to Firenze, all humans had the idea of Divination completely wrong because our kind was hardly capable of perfecting the art that centaurs practice their entire lives.

Even though I had respect for Firenze, I still wasn't able to find this subject fascinating at all and was counting down the time to when we were allowed to leave. The only thing that I found interesting or slightly amusing at all in that class was the disappointed faces of Lavender and Parvati who were basically being told that everything that they had grown to love in this class was all wrong. It was days like this that I wished that I would have walked out of the class when Hermione did so I could have taken another class instead.

The only thing that I had to look forward to anymore was the DA lessons that we had. We had finally progressed to making Patronuses, but they seemed to be a bit too advanced for some because not everyone was catching on as quickly as everyone else. We seemed to be able to look over this because of how advanced the spell really was.

"You just need to think of a really happy thought," I told Luna. "Take the happiest moment that you can remember and focus on it as you say the spell."

It was hard to tell if she was actually listening to me because of the glaze that seemed to have gone over her eyes, but she nodded after a moment before she began to walk slowly in another direction. I stood there for a brief moment before I walked around some more to see who else needed help and I found that Hermione head managed to create a Patronus in the form of an otter.

"Brilliant Hermione," Harry applauded.

"Fantastic," I smiled.

After Hermione got her first Patronus made, everyone else seemed to be more inspired to do the same thing. Before we knew it, more and more of them began to create their own Patronus - some of them didn't make their own shape, but they had at least created one.

"Come on Neville," I said. "You can do this, you just need to focus!"

"I'm trying," he sighed. "Maybe I just need to think of something else..."

"Well, what is the memory that you're using now?" I asked.

"Er...when I first found out I was going to Hogwarts," he admitted. "Gran was so proud - she thought that I was a Squib for sure."

"Maybe that one isn't good enough," I shrugged. "Try to think of a moment where you thought it wouldn't be possible to be any happier."

"Okay, thanks - I'll try," he nodded.

When I walked around again, I found Fred and George wrestling with each other and laughing. I rolled my eyes and poked George on the back before he looked back at me.

"Oh, hey," he smiled sheepishly.

"Aren't you supposed to be making a Patronus?" I asked with a smile. "Both of you?"

"We were," Fred said. "You just missed it."

"Sure I did," I laughed. "Just try to do it, would you?"

"Fine, we will," Fred mumbled. "Go on George, show us how it's done."

He waved his wand in the air and said the spell, but nothing came out of it. Of course, I had nearly expected this because no one had gotten it right on their first try anyway. All he needed was a bit of practice and a good memory.

"Look at Neville's!" Seamus shouted from behind me.

I turned around and saw a giant eagle soaring through the air. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing to look at the bird and applauded once it vanished into the air after a moment. Out of everyone in the room, Neville seemed to be the most shocked out of everyone.

"Well now I feel awful," Fred said once everyone began talking again. "Neville even has it done right now..."

"Be nice," I scolded.

"He's got a point..." George said. "Now we have to get it right."

"Well I'm happy that you have some inspiration now," I smirked.

I walked over to Neville who was already being congratulated by Seamus and Dean who were standing next to him.

"That was great," I said. "I guess you finally thought of a good memory."

"What was your memory anyway?" Dean asked.

Neville's eyes flickered over to me and he suddenly began to go pink in the face.

"Er...well, it's nothing really," he stammered. "I don't really - "

Everything in the room suddenly felt like it was at a standstill when the doors to the Room of Requirement opened up suddenly and closed just as quickly. From the hallway came Dobby who seemed to be in a bit terrified.

Everyone in the room that had been talking before went silent when they spotted the elf standing at the door and we all became very confused. I glanced over at Harry and he looked even more clueless than everyone else. What was Dobby doing in here? Why did he look so scared? Was something wrong?

"Dobby...what is it?" I asked when no one else spoke up.

"The elves been told not to tell Emily Potter," he said with wide eyes as he shook his head. "But Dobby had to come - Dobby had to warn you Harry and Emily Potter."

"Had to warn us of what?" Harry asked.

"She told us not to tell," Dobby said in a panic.

He suddenly threw his hands over his mouth and then began to beat his head into the floor below him. Hermione let out a shriek and Harry and I ran quickly over to him so that he would stop hurting himself.

"Dobby - STOP!" I shouted.

"Dobby is being bad - " he started.

"Who is 'she?'" Harry asked.

Then it suddenly dawned on me. Who else in this school would give orders to the house-elves regarding either myself or Harry?

"Umbridge?" I suggested. "What did she tell you not to say?"

"Dobby can't say," he said weakly.

"Oh no," Harry said suddenly.

"What is it?" I asked him.

Harry's face suddenly began to look very panic-stricken and I couldn't understand why. The only thing that my brother seemed to be able to focus on was Dobby's saddened and confused face.

"Umbridge knows, doesn't she Dobby?" Harry asked in a hallow tone. "She knows what we're doing in here, doesn't she?"

Dobby nodded his head quickly and everyone in the room looked at each other in horror, unable to process what we had just figured out.

"We need to get out of here," I said quietly. "Everyone - run, NOW!"

"Get out of here!" Harry yelled.

There was suddenly a mad scramble to get out of the door and we were quick to do so. Harry and I made sure that every single person was out of the room before we closed the door behind us and took off down the hallways with everyone else. The only thing that I could concentrate on at this point was putting as much distance between myself and the Room of Requirement as possible.

"AHHH!"

My head spun around and I immediately stopped in my tracks when I found Harry on the ground. His eyes grew wide and he looked directly at me when I began to run towards him.

"No Emily - RUN!" he yelled.

"There they are - I knew I got one of them!"

Draco came running towards us and Umbridge was following far behind him. He had that smirk of achievement on his face that I had seen so many times on his face that should how proud he was that he had caught us in the act of something we weren't supposed to be doing.

"Emily," Draco said with his face suddenly dropping and his voice lowered. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm not leaving Harry," I said. "How could you go on her side Draco - I wouldn't even expect you be that low."

"It's what my father wants," he said with narrowed eyes. "And it's for the Ministry."

"But is that what you want?" I asked.

Before he had a chance to say anything in reply, Umbridge caught up to us and had a wicked smile on her face. I went to step back, but just before I could put my foot back on the floor a spell was sent my way and I went crashing to the ground.

"Don't even think about leaving now," Umbridge snarled at me before turning to Draco. "Good work Mister Malfoy - you've caught just who I wanted."

Draco smirked, but when Umbridge turned her back to him, I could have sworn that I saw the slightest look of regret flash across his face. It was probably just try imagination playing tricks on me though.

...

Before either of us had time to comprehend what was happening, we were standing in Dumbledore's office alongside Umbridge, Cornelius Fudge, Percy Weasley, Kingsley, Professor McGonagall, and Dumbledore himself.

"I should have known that these two were up to something from the beginning," Umbridge snarled. "Both of them reeked of rebellion from the moment I met them."

Every ounce of my will power had to stop me from rolling my eyes at her. She believed that everyone was out to get her - it wasn't just Harry and me. Then again, most of the school hated her anyway. Maybe she was right...who am I kidding?

"I don't believe we need to waste any time lecturing either of you on what you did wrong," Fudge said. "I'm sure you were both well aware that what you were doing was wrong."

"No we weren't," Harry said suddenly.

Everyone in the room raised an eyebrow and looked at him - myself included. He was lying through his teeth, but why? What was the point if they had literally caught us in the act of breaking the rules?

"Are you implying that you did not know that creating an organization like yours is illegal under the new Educational Decree?" Fudge raised an eyebrow.

"No, I was not aware of this," Harry said with a blank stare at him.

"And you Miss Potter?" Fudge turned to me.

It only took me a millisecond to decide that I had to go with whatever act Harry was putting up. Although I wasn't entirely sure what his plan was, I figured that he knew what he was doing and I wouldn't ruin that for him.

"Do you honestly expect us to keep up with all of these new Decrees?" I asked. "There is a new one every day and they are really hard to keep track of."

Umbridge narrowed her eyes at me and I only gave her a smirk in reply. It wasn't completely true what I had said, but I knew that it would irritate her more than anything.

"They aren't going to cooperate Cornelius," Umbridge said. "We might as well just have the girl come in here and explain what happened."

My eyes flickered over to Harry's for only a split second. Was this what he wanted to figure out - who the snitch was? Even if this wasn't what he intended, I still found it more interesting than anything. I made a mental note to hex this person the first chance that I could.

When Percy returned with someone following close behind, I wasn't completely shocked with who I saw. It was Marietta - the girl Cho had brought with her to the first meeting. She didn't seem to apt on joining when we has seen her then and it seemed that she didn't even want us to look at her face anymore.

"Don't be shy girl," Umbridge said. "Go ahead and tell them what happened."

Just as Marietta began to relax and decided to peel her hands away from her face, I suddenly understood exactly why she didn't want any of us to see her face. Everyone gasped and my jaw dropped open when the word SNEAK was written across her face in horrible looking pimples.

"Good work Hermione," I said under my breath.

Marietta then began to sob I controllably and covered her face again. Umbridge, being the sympathetic woman that she is, pushed her aside and let out a big scoff.

"I have to do everything," she said irritably. "This girl here - Miss Edgecome - came to me earlier today and told me about these meetings that have been taking place in a place called the Room of Requirement."

"And what exactly have they been doing in this room?" Fudge asked. "Did Miss Edgecome inform you of that?"

"Unfortunately she didn't," Umbridge grumbled. "Before she got to that part of the story, her face began to...look like that."

"Well that's rude..." I murmured. "No one complains about your face..."

"Excuse me - " Umbridge started.

"Well I think it is settled," Dumbledore spoke up for the first time. "They weren't aware of the rules and I don't believe that it will be happening again. It was only one meeting after all."

"That is not true," Umbridge snarled. "They've been meeting together for at least six months - I have already spoken to a witness that overheard them talking at the Hogs Head."

My heart sunk in my chest. She had caught us red handed and there was no way that Dumbledore could get us out of this one.

"They were only discussing the meetings, correct?" Dumbledore asked. "You never actually witnessed them during these meetings?"

"Not personally," Umbridge scoffed. "But that is the purpose of our witness - she has been there during the meetings."

"Is this true Marietta?" Dumbledore asked. "Were you present during all of these meetings?"

All eyes turned to Marietta who was still covering her face so that we couldn't see anything except for her eyes that were frantically looking at each of us in a sort of panic. After one moment of unbreakable silence, she shook her head.

"Are you implying that you weren't aware of any of the meetings that took place before?" Fudge asked with a raised eyebrow.

She shook her head again and Umbridge looked like she was going to throw up on the spot she was so angry.

"You liar!" she spat. "You just told me earlier today all about this! I know that these two have been holding illegal meetings for over six month!"

"Where is your proof?" I asked suddenly.

"My proof?" Umbridge said in disbelief. "We just caught you red-handed! You were running away from the scene of the crime."

"We were just running," I said simply.

"No you were not!" she yelled. "I know what you were doing!"

"We were just roaming the halls," I said. "It's a horrible habit of ours - just ask Professor Snape."

"Roaming the halls," she said through gritted teeth. "I know for a fact that you were not doing that. And Professor Snape may need to be brought in here for questioning as well now that you mention him."

"Severus Snape?" Fudge asked. "Why would he need to be brought in for questioning?"

"Because I have caught him on several occasions blocking the area where we found these two today," Umbridge said with a wicked smile. "It is my belief that he may have been involved with keeping all of this quiet. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he was on the same side as Emily Potter - those two have a very odd relationship."

My jaw nearly dropped, but I stopped so that I wouldn't give her any reason to be suspicious. I didn't realize that Snape had tried to help us out and I couldn't understand how he had known where we were - has we really been that obvious? It wasn't kept a complete secret from him that we had been having illegal meetings, but he didn't know any of the details other than the fact that we were up to something that involved going against Dolores Umbridge. Could he honestly get in trouble for just being associated with us?

However, all thoughts escaped my brain when Umbridge continued to speak and I became incapable of moving after the words came out of her mouth.

"None of this matters anyway," she said. "We have all of the names written right here - Miss Parkinson managed to get a hold of it once everyone got away."

Harry and I looked at one another in horror - this was it. We couldn't escape from this. They had finally made it impossible for us to lie anymore than we already had. They had found the list that had all of our names on it and we were all going to be expelled.

"Let me see that," Fudge said with curiosity. "Let's just see who all - "

His eyes suddenly grew wide and his head jerked up to look at Dumbledore in disbelief. Everyone else in the room seemed confused and that was when I suddenly realized what he must have seen.

"What is this?" Fudge asked. "They call themselves Dumbledore's Army - what is the meaning of this Albus?"

Dumbledore didn't even look surprised at all. His eyes merely flickered over to us for a second and then he smiled at the Ministry officials that stood in front of him.

"This was all you, wasn't it?" Fudge demanded. "You organized this - you were the one that was conspiring against us!"

"Looks like I've been caught," Dumbledore shrugged.

"No!" Harry yelled.

"He's lying - this was all our fault," I said. "Dumbledore wasn't involved at all!"

"Don't try to protect me now," Dumbledore smiled. "It's called Dumbledore's Army - I've been caught. This was all my conspiracy against the Ministry and no one else is to blame. I organized all of this - not the Potters, not any other members of the group, and especially not Severus Snape. They were all unaware of my intentions against you Cornelius."

"Arrest him - NOW!" Fudge ordered.

Umbridge and Percy made a quick move towards him, but didn't make it before a huge blast sent us all backwards. When I managed to scramble back up so I was standing, Dumbledore was no longer in the room. He was gone. Dumbledore has left Hogwarts.

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope you liked it! I know that it wasn't the greatest of chapters, but I assure you that the next one will be more interesting than this one. That one should be up around Tuesday/Wednesday!**

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	39. Some Things Are Best Unknown

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 39**

No one knew where Dumbledore had gone after he had disappeared. It wasn't like we actually expected to hear from him, but we all found it very strange that there wasn't a single sign of where he had gone off to or even how he had managed to get off of school grounds. As Hermione continued to point out, it was impossible for anyone to Apparate or Disapparate on the grounds of Hogwarts. Then again, this was Dumbledore that we were talking about - who knew, maybe he could bend the rules a bit being Headmaster and all, it was hard to say.

The only news that spread faster than his departure was the news that Umbridge was going to be taking his place. Everyone in the school thought that this was the most ridiculous thing considering the fact that she wasn't even qualified for the job. If anyone should have taken his place, it should have been Professor McGonagall.

"There's no chance that they would allow McGonagall to be the new Headmistress," I said. "I'm sure Fudge made sure that someone on his side would be in charge and they weren't going to be taking any risks."

A small group of us were walking through the halls of the school talking about everything that had happened recently. We were forced to keep our voices lowered to make sure no one overheard us and got us into any real trouble, but we were certain that everyone else in the school was doing the exact same thing given the circumstances.

"Do you think that he's going to come back?" Ron asked.

"I would imagine he would return once all of this mess blows over," Fred shrugged. "Dumbledore isn't exactly one to just stay out of everything."

"He's probably known that something like this was going to happen eventually," George said. "Maybe not exactly how it all played out, but I'm sure that he had some idea that Fudge was going to find a way to take his job from him."

"And when the opportunity arose, he wasn't exactly hesitant," Harry said.

"Don't worry about that too much Harry," George smirked deviously. "We have a little plan that I'm sure will ruin her reign as Headmistress."

"What?" I asked quickly.

"I'll tell you later babe," he winked.

I let out a sigh and I knew that they had planned something bad. Even though I would love to see Umbridge have her day ruined, I wasn't exactly thrilled that there was a possibility of George or Fred getting into trouble for it. Things were hard enough as it was.

"Umbridge is probably loving life right now," Hermione scowled. "She's been waiting for this the entire time - she's always been after Dumbledore's job as Headmaster. She's won now, hasn't she?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Fred said. "She hasn't won until Dumbledore's given up and he's still on the run, isn't he?"

"She won't win until all of us are dead," Harry said darkly.

"You might not have to wait long for that Potter."

All of us stopped in our tracks and turned to see Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle walking out from another corridor nearby. All of us scowled when we saw them and I had to suppress the urge to knock all of their teeth out. If it wasn't for them being at least four times my size then I really don't think that there would've been much hesitation in the matter.

"What do you want Malfoy?" Harry snarled.

"I don't know if you should use that tone with me Potter," Draco smirked. "I think I'll be taking fifty points from Gryffindor for that."

"What are you talking about?" I asked in disbelief. "You can't even take points."

"Sure I can," Draco said. "That'll be another fifty for questioning my authority."

"Authority?" I scoffed. "What authority?"

"We're part of the Inquisitorial Squad," he said proudly. "Umbridge appointed a select few of us to carry out her duty and make sure that everyone is following the rules."

"Is that so?" George asked. "How does it feel being one of the Ministry's puppets Malfoy?"

"Wonderful now that you ask," he said. "And I think I'll take another fifty because I don't care for your tie."

"It's part of the school uniform, you prick," Fred said.

"Wow, you all should stop talking - that's another fifty," Draco said. "Pity that you all can't follow rules."

He smirked at all of us and Crabbe and Goyle began to laugh. All at once they walked into another corridor after a group of Hufflepuff boys that weren't doing anything out of the ordinary. He was probably just after some more points. We didn't make it very far in the hallway before we were stopped again by Filch who had Mrs. Norris following close behind him.

"Umbridge needs you in her office Potter," he said.

"Why?" Harry demanded. "I didn't do anything."

"Don't get so defensive," he said. "And she's requested you as well Miss Potter."

"Are we not allowed to know why?" I asked. "Or is it in her latest Decree that we aren't allowed to question the school janitors?"

"Don't get smart with me girl," he said angrily. "Just go to her office - she wants to speak with you both."

Filch grumbled some more under his breath and then turned into another corridor to go yell at Peeves. Everyone looked at Harry and me and we just let out a sigh. Even though I wasn't completely sure about what Umbridge wanted with us, I am sure that it wasn't going to be pleasant given what happened the last time we were in the same room as one another.

"Do you want me to go with you?" George asked as we went to walk another direction.

"No, I think we'll be fine," I shrugged. "Besides, it isn't like she's going to be any easier on us if we have a witness nearby. I'll see you in the common room later."

"Okay, but I'll make sure that she won't have either of you too long," George said. "I don't like having you two alone with her...especially after what happened with Dumbledore."

"George - " I said warningly.

"We aren't going to murder her, don't worry," Fred said. "It's nothing that will get us sent to Azkaban."

"Just give her hell while we get things set up," he said. "It'll only take a minute."

I smirked back at him and then waved to everyone before I caught up to Harry who had already made it a good distance away. It was a shame really because we weren't all that far away from her office which meant that we had very little time to mentally prepare ourselves for what she was going to say to us.

"It's going to be about Dumbledore," Harry said. "I'm sure of it."

"That or she's just going to try to get us to talk about the DA," I said.

"Either way, I refuse to give her any information," he said. "She's not going to hear a thing from me."

"She'll get about as much from me," I said. "I'm not giving the toad the satisfaction of knowing what we were doing behind her back - I don't care what she does to me."

When we got to her office, she told me that I had to wait outside for a moment so that she could have a private word with Harry first. She was going to be talking with me alone in a moment and I had to wonder what it was that she didn't want us to be in the same room for. It was very odd because we had both been there the night that Dumbledore left, so I didn't quite understand why it was being talked about like it was some sort of secret.

While I stood out in the hallway, I found myself pacing back and forth without anything to do really. I thought about what Fred and George said about having something planned and I cringed at the thought knowing that it was going to be awful. Funny, but something that would only have more rules thrown down our thoughts. I guess it didn't really matter all that much considering Umbridge would have acted like a Nazi towards us regardless.

"Emily."

I jumped at the sound of his voice because I didn't realize that anyone was around me and when I looked over I saw Snape walking down the hallways looking like he was busy.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me.

"Umbridge said that she wanted to speak with Harry and me," I explained.

"Did she now?" he asked looking surprised. "What about?"

"I have no idea," I shrugged. "But she's talking to Harry now."

"Okay," he said. "When he gets out, would you give him a message - it's for both of you really."

"Sure," I nodded.

"I'm going to have to have both of you on the same day this week for your extra lessons," he said. "A group of first years blew a hole in the dungeons with one of their potions and I had to give them detention."

"How did they manage that?" I asked.

"They're first years," he sighed as if that was explanation enough. "Well, I have to go grade some papers - tell me what it was that Umbridge wanted later and don't let her run over you."

"You don't have to worry about that," I laughed.

Once he was gone, I went back to my pacing and tried to remember what it was that I had been thinking of before he interrupted me. It wasn't until a moment later that it suddenly dawned on me when I heard an enormous explosion erupt from nearby and I saw several colorful sparks fly past me. Within seconds, I saw all different sorts of sparks and fireworks in the shape of cartwheels and dragons come flying past me. Just at that moment, Harry came flying out of Umbridge's office alongside the Headmistresses herself - both of them were looking around frantically.

"What is going on?" Umbridge demanded loudly. "You - Miss Potter - what is this?"

"How should I know?" I asked.

"Get out of my sight - both of you," she said. "I need to sort this out…"

She quickly walked out of sight and Harry raised his eyebrows at me like this was all of my fault. Before he even had time to say anything I walked quickly in the same direction that Umbridge did so that I could find the source of these fireworks. Harry walked quickly beside me as we raced through the hallways.

"Does this have anything to do with your boyfriend?" he asked as we turned through a corridor.

"Of course it does," I said. "Who else would set off fireworks _inside_ of the school."

"I can practically hear Hermione's disapproval from here," he said.

I laughed and then we went down some steps and, soon enough, we found the source of all this madness. Nearly all of the school had gathered to watch this mountain of enchanted fireworks set off and fly around their heads. The only people that didn't seem to be enjoying this at all were Umbridge and Filch. The Headmistress was currently screaming at Filch to make this all stop and he looked completely bewildered and confused with what was happening.

"So what do you think?" someone asked me from behind as they put their arms around my waist.

"It's wonderful George," I smiled. "I don't think that you could have picked a better time to do this."

"I know," Harry said next to us. "I thought that Umbridge was going to start spitting fire on me for not knowing where Dumbledore is."

"Is that what she wanted with you two?" George asked as he set his head on top of mine as if it were some sort of headrest.

"That's all she managed to ask me other than what I wanted to drink," Harry shrugged. "Oh, by the way - if she ever offers something to drink, don't drink it. I'm almost sure that she put truth serum in my tea just a minute ago."

"Noted," I nodded.

"So how angry was she really?" George asked as we began to walk out of the room where the fireworks were in.

"She was furious," I said. "You should have seen her face - I think she's going to murder you the next time she sees you."

"She can't prove that it was us," he said as he held onto my hand.

"Who else would it be?" I laughed.

"We are innocent until proven guilty," he smirked.

I rolled my eyes and laughed. They weren't going to stop causing trouble until they were banned from the school. I'm sure that even then they would continue their nonsense, but I will still love them through it all. They were idiots, but they were my idiots.

* * *

The following day I found myself extremely exhausted and I wanted to collapse on the ground by the middle of the day. It had been difficult to sleep the night before because I had gotten the dream again last night and this time I had finally gotten through the door. The only problem was that this door led to another several doors and I was so confused because I wasn't sure which one I should have gone through first, but I didn't get a chance to before Lavender's loud mouth interrupted my dream and brought me back to Hogwarts again.

Before I even realized what time it was, I remembered that we both had a meeting today with Snape and I nearly had to drag him along. Just when we were almost there, we were stopped when Cho came into our path and wanted to talk to Harry. In a sad attempt to give him some privacy, I stepped into another corridor to wait for him. I watched the clock and nearly left him because we were already late when he suddenly stormed next to me looking angrier than he had before.

"What's wrong?" I asked him. "What did Cho have to say?"

"She was defending Marietta," he rolled his eyes. "I don't understand how she could even do that - she betrayed her too, it wasn't just us!"

"Isn't Marietta her best friend?" I asked.

"I don't care if it was her own mother!" Harry said irritably. "She shouldn't be able to forgive her that easily for getting us into so much trouble - it's all Marietta's fault that Dumbledore is gone! If it wasn't for them figuring out about the group then he would still be here."

"Fair enough," I shrugged. "But it wasn't really her fault that we called ourselves Dumbledore's Army. It probably wasn't the smartest of ideas."

"I know," he sighed. "But we need to get to Snape's now before he comes looking for us."

Snape was already in his office waiting for us when we finally arrived. He didn't look pleased at all that we had arrived late, something that I had tried to explain to Harry. Somehow this entire experience felt ten times weirder than normal knowing that I would have to watch Harry get his mind invaded - it wasn't exactly something that I was looking forward to.

"How nice of you two to finally show up," Snape said. "I nearly thought that you were skipping."

"We're only a few minutes late," I said.

"Let's get started, I haven't got all night," he said while completely ignoring what I had said. "Get over here Potter - Emily you can sit down at a table and wait for your brother to finish. As you know, I'm going to be having to work with both of you tonight because of a certain mishap with fireworks last night...I expect both of you to perform quickly and efficiently so that we can move this along."

I nodded and quickly set my things down on the closet table so that I could take a seat. It was only a moment later that Snape was standing a distance away from Harry prepared to delve into his mind for the millionth time. Just as he went to say the spell, the door to the room suddenly burst open and a surprised looking Draco found us all in the room.

"Oh - I didn't realize that you were busy sir," Draco said quickly.

"Just some remedial Potions," Snape sighed.

"Remedial?" Draco asked while eyeing me. "I can understand Potter - but Emily too?"

"You all do realize that my last name is Potter too?" I asked. "This is going to get really confusing if you keep that up."

"She is taking advanced Potions," Snape said over me. "She is merely tutoring her brother here as a temporary assignment for her."

"Wow," Draco scoffed. "I didn't realize that you were that awful with Potions Potter."

"What do you want Draco?" I asked irritably.

"Oh, right," Draco said while shaking his head and turning back to Snape. "Professor Umbridge needs your help - someone has gotten their head stuck in the toilet."

"Brilliant," Snape muttered. "Well, I guess that the two of you are going to have to continue your lessons another day because I have to attend to this."

I felt a sigh of relief when he left the room with Draco because now I knew that I could go another week without my head being tampered with. Harry, who was still standing up looking at the space where Snape had just been, looked like he had just won a gold medal.

"Can you believe the luck?" he asked me.

"I know," I smiled as I began to gather my things. "No Occlumency for another week! I guess that we could go back to the Great Hall with everyone else - I'm sure that dinner is still going on."

I began to walk out of the door, but I stopped in my tracks when I noticed that Harry wasn't behind me. I turned around and was surprised to see that he hadn't moved from the spot that he was standing in when I last saw him.

"Harry, are you okay?" I asked him.

"It's the Pensieve," he breathed.

"What?" I asked him.

"The Pensieve - it's right here," he said and pointed to Snape's desk.

I walked back into the room and found the bowl filled with silvery liquid sitting on top of Snape's desk. It felt strangely out of place, but I just figured that it had something to do with keeping it away from Umbridge.

"I'm sure that he'll give it back to Dumbledore when he comes back to Hogwarts," I shrugged. "Come on, let's go."

I started to walk out of the room again, but when I glanced back I found Harry walking up to the Pensieve with the most curious look in his eye.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"Just…taking a look," he murmured.

"Are you insane?" I asked. "If Snape catches you looking at that he will be furious!"

"Snape is always furious at me," he said. "This won't change the record. Besides, I know that you've wondered what Snape thinks about anyway - this will be the perfect opportunity."

"I am not looking at that thing," I said. "There's no chance."

"Oh come on Emily," Harry said. "Just one memory - it won't hurt."

"What if he comes back?" I asked.

"He's getting someone's head out of a toilet on a completely different floor," Harry said. "He's going to be a while."

I looked at the door and then back at the Pensieve. Harry was right - I had wondered about Snape's past on multiple occasions, but was it right to invade his privacy like this? Snape had put private thoughts and memories into this Pensieve, I was sure of it. How could I do that to him?

But wasn't that exactly what he had been doing to us since after Christmas holiday? He had been invading our minds for a long time, so was it only right to return the favor?

"Just one memory," Harry said. "And then we'll go."

"Fine," I said. "But if he catches us then I'm blaming you."

"He'll blame me anyway," Harry said.

I threw my stuff down on the table and walked quickly over to the bowl. I felt incredibly wrong for doing this, but the curiosity of the unknown overpowered any other feeling at the moment.

"Ready?" Harry asked.

"Not really," I said honestly. "Let's just get this over with."

The dungeons flew out of view in a second and I suddenly found myself standing in the Great Hall, only this wasn't the Great Hall as I had ever seen it. The usual four tables were pushed aside and rows of desks were put in their place. In each desk sat a student, all of which were extraordinarily quiet and seemed to be working hard on the sheet that sat in front of them.

"What is this?" I asked Harry quietly.

"They're taking their OWLs," Harry said as he pointed up to the board in the front of the room. "This must have been when Snape went here..."

"Where is he - oh," I said.

He was sitting directly to our right and his hooked nose was only inches from the exam that was sitting on his desk. This oddly young looking Snape seemed more focused on the test than anyone in the room by the looks of it. That was when I remembered that this was his favorite subject so he was determined to do his best.

I walked around his desk and eyed him closely. Other than the obvious change in age, this Snape seemed to look the exact same as he did now...perhaps a little bit more ambitious and maybe slightly less miserable...

"Emily...is that...?" Harry whispered as he walked further up into the room.

I scrunched up my eyebrows and walked up to see what he was talking about to find myself looking right at my father as he was in school. It was nearly difficult to tell the difference between him and Harry.

Looking around the room, I noticed that I recognized Sirius, Lupin, and Wormtail who were all sitting in the general area that we were standing. It hadn't occurred to me that they would be in Snape's memory, but I guess it shouldn't have been as surprising considering they were in the same year.

From beside my father, I could see Snape's eyes boring into him. Even for the brief moment that I saw Snape looking at my dad, I could see the hatred in his eyes.

"Quills down!" a voice in the front of the room squeaked.

I jumped at the sound of the voice and looked up to find Professor Flitwick standing in the front of the room. He didn't look all that different then than he does now, but you could definitely tell that this had been years before.

Everything around me suddenly became black again and it took me a moment to realize that the scene was reforming. We were walking beside Snape trough the grounds of Hogwarts. People were still buzzing about the OWLs and how well they thought they could do, but all I could focus on was how alone Snape was. Did he really not speak to anyone or was it just a weird coincidence that he seemed like an outcast.

"Look ahead - he's following Dad," Harry pointed out.

So that was what he was doing - he was spying on the man that he truly hated. That's when I suddenly remembered Sirius telling me that he was always trying to get them into some sort of trouble, was that what this was about?

The group of young boys ahead of us seemed to not have a care in the world as they thee around a Snitch and joked to one another. This was the complete opposite of the boy next to me. Snape seemed to resent them and I could understand why. Snape didn't have any friends - that was apparent now more than ever.

After a moment or two of walking, they finally found a place to sit down and Snape was stopped not too far away from them underneath a tree where he pulled out some papers from his bag and went to work. Maybe he wasn't trying to bother them after all…

Harry wandered over to where our father was with his friends, but I was somehow transfixed on my innocent Potions professor who was sitting all alone. It was saddening to see that he had a terrible life even at Hogwarts. Ever since we had found out what we were, Harry and I found our lives to be much better knowing that we were different. This boy in front of me that grew to be my teacher seemed like the person I was when I was at the Dursley's. The only difference was that I had Harry with me.

"Hey Snivellus."

I looked over and found James walking over to Snape with a mischievous smile on his face. His friends followed closely behind and Harry came right along with them looking skeptical about the situation. Why was our father talking to Snape? Even I knew that they hated one another.

Within half a second, Snape had already retrieved his wand from his bag and started to point it at James. Our father was faster and quickly yelled out a spell that sent Snape and his wand flying.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted at Snape. "Impedimenta!"

Snape was on the ground shouting and swearing at James and Sirius as they got closer to him. He was helpless, there was nothing that he could do to stop them from whatever they were about to do. At this point a crowd was starting to form around the boys and all of the viewers seemed to be really entertained, something that disgusted me.

"Watch this," James smirked. "Scourgify!"

Soap bubbles began to fall out of his mouth and Snape gagged and spit them out pathetically. Why was my father doing this to him? Snape hadn't even done anything to him - he needed to stop.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted.

I wasn't the only one that had said it. Harry's jaw dropped next to James when he looked next to me. When I glanced over, I saw who I instantly knew to be my mother. Now I understood exactly why people were stunned on much we looked alike. We had a slight height difference, I was shorter, but other than that we could have passed for twins.

"What was that Evans?" James asked as he smoothed his hair back.

"I said to leave him alone," Lily repeated. "He hasn't done anything to bother you."

"The fact that he is even near me is enough to repulse me," James sneered. "But I'll leave him alone on one condition - go out with me."

"Not a chance," she scoffed.

"That's too bad," James smirked. "I - "

There was suddenly a short disturbance when Snape was freed from the curse and got a hold of his wand. Sirius went to send a curse at him again, but Snape was faster this time and sent something towards my father that left a gash in his face.

"How dare you!" James shouted.

He sent a spell back at Snape that sent him in the air so that he was hanging upside down. His robes fell over his head and revealed his underwear, something that made everyone else laugh and made me look at my father in disgust.

"Put him down!" Lily screamed.

"If you insist," James shrugged.

After a moment more of him hanging, James released the spell which sent him falling to the ground so that he hit himself hard on the head. Although he had still managed to hurt himself, I felt a great sense of pride knowing that my mother had been there to help Snape so that my father couldn't have done anything else to him.

"You better be happy that she was here," James sneered. "You would have had it much worse off."

"I don't need help from a filthy little Mudblood like her," Snape said suddenly without showing his face.

My jaw dropped and I looked back to my mother. She didn't say anything, but I could tell that she had been hurt by what he had said to her. This didn't make any sense? Why had Snape called her a Mud blood - I thought that they were friends when they were at Hogwarts. A sudden fury came up in me because of what he had said and what my father had done to him - I couldn't decide at this point who I was angrier with.

Just as James went to say something else, I felt a hard pull on my shoulder. With only the blink of an eye, I was back into the cold dungeons of Hogwarts. When I looked over to my side, my eyes widened when I saw Snape's angry face looking at both of us.

"What do you think you are doing?" he seethed.

"I - I," Harry stuttered.

"Get out of my office - both of you," he said. "If you repeat what you saw to anyone, I will make sure that you are both expelled."

"We wouldn't - " Harry said.

"Get out!" Snape shouted.

I quickly walked over to grab my stuff and Harry walked out of the door quickly in front of me. I glanced back at Snape and he was glaring at me. I couldn't remember the last time that he ever looked at me the same way that he did with Harry or my father, but I didn't like it at all.

Before I had a chance to say anything to him like I wanted to, Snape had closed the dungeon doors on my face leaving my questions unanswered and my anger and confusion unresolved.

"Come on Emily," Harry said as he began to pull on my arm.

"But I just wanted to - " I started.

"Not now," Harry said. "I don't even think he'll be willing to talk to you right now…"

My heart sank in my chest as we walked away from his door. I was angry with Snape for saying what he did with my mother, but at the same time I knew that I should have never have seen that memory in the first place. Did this whole thing mean that we would never talk to each other again? Would he treat me like he did Harry? Maybe that was what I deserved after all, but I needed answers before he was going to block me off completely.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around…how about late Saturday/Sunday afternoon? And this time I'll actually try to have it up on the date that I said. Haha**

**So what do you think is going to happen next? Is Snape going to be able to trust Emily anymore or do you think he's going to cut her off completely?**

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	40. The Feeling of Being Alone

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 40**

"Emily, are you okay?"

I looked up at George from my untouched plate of food and just blinked.

"Yeah, why would you think that something was wrong?" I asked him.

"Well, I've been asking you the same thing for about five minutes now," he shrugged. "And you haven't even budged. Is this about Snape canceling your lessons?"

"That might have something to do with it," I murmured.

"Well, I'm sure that he figured that you had the basics down," George said as he popped another grape into his mouth. "I'm sure it isn't personal - you're one of the only students in this school that he doesn't want to kill."

I gave him a smile, but I knew that wasn't true anymore. The look he had given me down in the dungeons made me feel like I had lost one of best friends. Of course George wouldn't understand that because I didn't actually tell him about it. Snape didn't want us to tell anyone and I kept that promise, not that I actually was planning on telling anyone regardless of what he said.

The only thing that seemed to be keeping my mind off of that incident was Quidditch. Our team was worse than ever and that was more apparent now because all of the additional practices that Angelina set up for us. We were nearly practicing every chance we got, but it wasn't doing much good. The team just wasn't the same without Harry, Fred, and George. I was fully ready to admit that I wasn't a very big asset to the team, but I was one of the better new players that we had - which isn't a good thing considering the only thing I seem to be able to do well is fly. Sure, I can hit the Bludger ever now and then, but this wasn't going to be something that could guarantee a win for the Gryffindor team.

Later that day I found myself sitting in the empty common room while everyone else was in the Great Hall eating dinner. Everything that had happened lately had gotten rid of my appetite, not to mention that I really needed to get some homework done. It wasn't that great of a surprise when I found Harry walking into the room only a couple of minutes into dinner.

"Hey Emily…" Harry said. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"You're asking me if we can talk?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "You don't have to ask permission."

"I know, but it's about what we saw in Snape's office…" he said. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to talk about it."

"It's bothering you too?" I asked as I set my quill down.

"Ever since I saw it I've felt different," Harry said. "I don't know how to explain it - I'm just confused about a lot of things."

"You're talking about how Dad was acting, right?" I asked.

"Exactly…" Harry sighed. "I just don't understand it. I never realized how bad he had been and it makes me feel horrible that he ever treated anyone like that. And what about our Mum? She hated him, so why did she even marry him?"

"Harry, I don't know," I sighed. "I've been wondering the same things, but I don't know if we'll ever find out the reasoning behind what happened."

I wasn't going to tell me that there was more to that memory that bothered me because I knew that he wouldn't fully understand what I meant. It had always been my belief that Snape and our mother had been very close friends because of the way that he talks about her and some of the other signs that he had given me in the past, but this memory completely contradicted every thought that I had ever had about their relationship. Why would Snape call her a Mudblood if they were friends? It just didn't make any sense to me.

When I first thought about it I was angry at him for what he had said to her, but at the same time I have to question his motives behind it. If that had truly been friends then something must have changed either at that moment or sometime before. Or maybe I was just completely wrong about the entire situation. Maybe Snape looked at my mother as another Mudblood like all of the Slytherins do now, but that wouldn't explain his behavior when speaking about her. I wanted to talk to him about this and ask him what had happened, but I knew that he wouldn't talk to me about that or anything else for that matter at the moment. Maybe he wouldn't speak to me again, it was hard to say at this point.

"But maybe we can speak to Sirius," Harry said with a sudden brightness in his eyes.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. "There is no way that we can speak to him."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Well let's look at the facts," I said. "Every piece of mail that goes in and out of Hogwarts is being monitored, every fireplace in the area is being watched by Umbridge - shall I continue?"

"So you don't think we should try to contact him?" he asked looking slightly disappointed.

"I'm saying that it's impossible," I said. "I would love to talk to him about this, but there isn't any way that we can do it without getting caught by Umbridge."

Suddenly a few second-years walked into the room and we stopped our discussion. As much as I would love to speak with Sirius like Harry did, I knew that this was virtually impossible to accomplish with Umbridge on full alert and Dumbledore missing. We didn't have any hope as long as long as Umbridge was here to control us.

* * *

"What do you want to do after Hogwarts?" I asked Neville during lunch the following day.

"I suppose that I could do something with Herbology," he shrugged. "I'm not sure what exactly, but I guess that's a start."

"Maybe you could be a teacher," I shrugged. "Or if you don't want to do that then I'm sure that there is somewhere in the field that you would like."

"What do you want to do George?" Neville asked.

"Well, Fred and I already have plans to open up a joke shop," he said. "We've already picked out a few places that we were thinking about building one."

"But we want to have more than one shop eventually," Fred said. "I guess that we already have enough money to have more than one, but we want to make sure that there is going to be a high demand for more business."

"Where do you want to start your business?" Harry asked.

"We were thinking Diagon Alley," George said. "That or somewhere in Hogsmeade."

"Or both," Fred shrugged.

"Both is good," George smirked.

The topic of the day was careers. Bulletins had already been placed all around the school saying that we were going to be meeting with our Head of the House to discuss our future plans and what classes are required in order to achieve our goals. There were loads of things to choose from and the bulletins around the school presented as many options as they could for the people who hadn't decided on a future yet.

"Banking seems like it would be incredibly dull," Hermione said as she set down the pamphlet. "And I don't think that Muggle Relations seems to be challenging enough…"

"Muggle Relations?" Ron asked. "What do you even do with that?"

"It's very important Ron," Hermione said. "We have to have someone converse with Muggles to - "

"I think that Dad missed his calling on that one," Fred laughed.

"Sounds like it," Ron said.

From across the Great Hall, I watched as Snape paced along the Slytherin table without even taking a glance up at me. It hurt that we had gone to the best of friends to not even acknowledging each others existence. Ever since he had told me to leave his office I had felt regret with looking at that memory. But maybe it was a good thing that I had seen it because I was bound to know about it sooner or later after I did some prying, but it shouldn't have ended up like this and I don't really think that I am the one to blame. He was the one avoiding me and I wanted it to stop.

"Are you okay babe?" George asked me.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"No you're not," he said. "Is it what Ginny said to me - do you want to talk to Sirius?"

"Wait, how did she know that?" I asked.

"Harry told her that he wanted to talk to him," he shrugged.

"What did I do?" Harry asked when he heard his name in our conversation.

"So you two want to talk to Sirius, right?" Fred asked with a mischievous smile.

"Well, yeah," Harry said. "But there really isn't a way that we can do that."

"Sure there is," Fred said. "We could create a distraction - "

"An amazing distraction that no one would ever forget," George said.

"I'm afraid of where this is going," I said uncomfortably. "You two are going to get in a lot of trouble."

"We're always in a lot of trouble," Fred said. "And this time we'll actually have a reason."

"But even if you create a distraction, how do you think we're going to get in contact with Sirius?" I asked.

"Umbridge's office," Harry said suddenly.

Everyone in our group went quiet and looked at him in disbelief.

"Are you mad?" Hermione asked.

"Maybe he isn't," I said. "The fireplace in her office is bound to be the only one in the school that isn't monitored."

"How would you even get into that room in the first place?" Hermione asked. "There's bound to be enchantments on the door so you cannot get in."

"I could use Sirius's knife," Harry said. "The one he gave me for Christmas can break through an lock no matter what the enchantment is."

"It's still dangerous," Hermione said. "What if she catches you?"

"Then we'll be in trouble," I shrugged. "Change the record - she already hates us both."

"But what if she catches Sirius?" she asked.

"She won't," George said firmly. "Trust us - we've been planning this one for ages and it's going to be a knockout."

When the bell rang, we all began to walk out of the Great Hall, but something made me stop George so that I could talk to him. Something about this big even that he was planning with Fred made me nervous.

"How much trouble is this…distraction going to cause?" I asked.

"Loads," he shrugged.

"What if you get expelled?" I asked.

"We won't let that happen," he said. "Emily, listen. Fred and I have pretty much given up on everything at this school. We already have our future planned out with the joke shop and we reckon that it's going to be successful. The only reason that we actually came back this year was to get our business established with the students and maybe test out some products."

"So…what are you saying?" I asked, afraid of what the answer was.

"I'm saying that we aren't going to be expelled because we're probably just going to leave the school anyway," he said.

"And leave us all to deal with Umbridge?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

He let out a sigh and looked at the ground. I knew that he wasn't doing this to hurt anyone, but I couldn't not feel like he was abandoning me in the same sense so I would be left to deal with the Nazi that is Umbridge. But it was for the best and I knew it. George and his brother didn't have any real reason to be here other than business.

"It's not like I want to leave you all, it's just - " he started.

"It's okay George," I smiled. "We're going to be okay here. Just…give her hell for me, okay?"

"Really?" he asked. "You're okay if we go out with a bang?"

"I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to leave," I shrugged. "But don't think that doesn't mean you have to write me as often as you can."

"This is why I love you," he smiled. "You're amazing."

"I love you too," I smiled. "Just try not to forget about me when you're out in the real world."

"I couldn't forget you if I wanted to," he said.

I leaned in and kissed him and he put his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. We kissed for a while before we heard a few ghosts yelling at us to get to class and then I was off to Potions wondering if I would be seeing George in this school again before he left.

When I made it to Snape's class just before the bell rang, I found that the entire class had beat me there. When I looked up at Snape, he didn't even acknowledge that I was in the room and my heart sank in my chest at the thought of him just not caring about me anymore.

During class I remained silent as I created my potion and when he told us all to stop, I wondered if he would even look at me when he graded my potion. I got my answer when he just walked past mine to criticize Neville's potion beside me. All I could do was look at my hands so that I wouldn't have to see the hate in his eyes when he went past me.

"What's up with him?" Neville asked me when Snape moved to the next table. "He didn't say anything about yours."

"He's angry with me," I said quietly.

"Why?" he asked. "What did you do?"

"We just had a…misunderstanding…" I murmured.

"Was it during one of your extra lessons?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I sighed. "But I'm not getting those anymore."

"And why not?" he asked sounding irritated.

"Because of our misunderstanding," I said.

"How is that fair?" Neville asked so only I could hear. "He knows that those lessons are protecting you against You-Know-Who - how could he just stop them because of an argument?"

"It was pretty bad," I said.

"That's still no excuse," he grumbled.

When the bell rang for us to leave, everyone stood up quickly and got there things together, but I held back because I knew that this was probably the only chance that I was going to get.

"Are you coming?" Harry asked me when he got to my table.

"In a minute," I said. "I need to talk to Snape about something."

"Emily, I don't think that - " he started.

"I don't care," I said firmly. "I want answers."

Harry sighed and then went on to join the rest of the class in walking out of the room while I stuck back taking extra time to pack my things away. Once everyone had left the room, Snape glared up at me like I was the carrier of the Black Plague.

"Can I help you Miss Potter?" he asked with anger apparent in his voice.

"Yes, actually you can," I said as I began walking closer to the desk. "It's about what I saw in the Pensieve the other day - "

"Unless it is related to Potions then I don't have any interest in speaking with you," he said bluntly.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"It's school policy," he said without looking me in the eye.

"And since when do you listen to what Umbridge has to say?" I asked. "I just wanted to - "

"Get out of my classroom Miss Potter," he said coldly.

He stared at me with the coldest look that I had seen in a long time. Even through all of the anger, I could hear the small bit of hurt in his voice.

"No," I said.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I said no," I said. "I refuse to leave this room before we talk about this."

"There is nothing to talk about," he said.

"Really?" I asked. "Then why are you so angry at me - what did I do that was so horrible?"

"Other than go through my memories with your brother?" he asked.

"You mean like you do to us ever single week?" I asked in disbelief.

"That's different," he said. "I was doing that to help you. I wasn't doing it for entertainment."

"You think that we enjoyed seeing what we saw?" I asked.

He narrowed his eyes and stepped around his desk so that he could walk towards the door. Just as he grabbed onto the handle, a sudden fury rose through me.

"HEY - I'M TALKING TO YOU!" I shouted.

He let go of the handle and spun around so that he was facing me. He looked down at me like I was some sort of lesser child and stared a hole through my face as he spoke.

"What is it that you want from me?" he said with his voice getting louder with each word. "What do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to tell you how your father made my life a living hell every single day that I was in school? Do you want me to tell you how much your mother hated me for what I said to her? What is it that you want?"

I felt belittled as he spoke to me like this. Snape had never risen his voice to me and, to be honest, it scared me to see him like this. He was always so calm and collected - even when he was angry he seemed to be in control of himself. This was different and it made me lose track of anything that I wanted to ask him. I was left wide-eyed and speechless.

"Didn't you say that you wanted to talk?" he said through gritted teeth. "Say something!"

"Why are you doing this?" I asked shakily.

"Doing what?" he sneered.

"Why are you talking to me like this?" I asked quietly. "We used to be able to talk to each other before I looked in the Pensieve - "

"You shouldn't have looked through my memories," he said. "That proved to me that you're just like your brother - just like the man that tortured me every day in school."

"Do you think that I enjoyed seeing what my father did to you?" I asked. "I thought that you would have known better than that - I thought that you knew what kind of person that I am. Apparently I was wrong about more than one thing."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"You're worse than I thought," I said angrily. "My mother was trying to help you when you needed it most and you pushed her away just like you're pushing me away."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he snarled.

"I know _exactly_ what I'm talking about," I retorted. "I tried to understand that you were in a dark place when you said that to my mother, but now I'm starting to think a little differently. For years I've tried to defend you when everyone else was against you - I've sacrificed a lot just so that I could talk to you and you're just going to push me away like you have so many other people."

"I - " he started.

"No, I'm not finished," I spoke over him. "I am disgusted that you would think that I would find any joy in what my father did to you. I cannot believe that you would ever think so little of me. The thing is that I suddenly realized why you are so bitter in life and I began to understand why you have such difficulty being around me and my brother. Harry isn't happy with what he saw either, he is just as angry with what our father did as I am, but you are so quick to assume what others are thinking without even the slightest hint to prove otherwise and you're wrong to think that we would mock you for what happened so many years ago. I just wanted you to know that I don't think any different of you for what I saw in the Pensieve. I was angry for what you did to my mother because she was only trying to help, but I can see now that you don't need any help from anyone."

Snape just blankly stared at me without a single response. I shook my head and looked at the floor in shame.

"I apologize for making you disobey Umbridge's rules," I said. "I assure you that it won't happen again."

Without even glancing back to see if he tried to put up any protest, I walked around him and quickly exited the room. I walked blindly throughout the hallways only trying to put as much distance as I could between myself and my Potions Master. A hole burned in my chest that made me feel empty and alone. My brain suddenly began to blur and I stopped walking when I made it to the end of a random corridor where I leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor where I wept for the loss of a friend and the man I truly looked up to like a father. I needed him now more than ever and he chose to abandon me due to selfish pride. I wanted forgiveness acceptance from him, but now I wasn't sure if that would ever happen.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Tuesday or Wednesday.**

**So what do you think - will Snape and Emily go back to the way things were or do you think that this is it for their father-daughter sort of relationship?**

**Just an announcement - last year, on this day, I released the very first chapter of this fanfic. It's hard to believe that it's been that long, but I would like to thank everyone who has read it and I really hope that you stick with it until the end. It's really meant a lot that you all read this story and I sincerely appreciate every one of you that reads the story!**

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	41. The Escape of the Weasleys

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

**Chapter 41**

After my own person sob fest, I suddenly remembered that I had to meet with Professor about choosing my future career. According to the clock that was set on the wall, I was nearly running late and I knew that they would take Harry, who went after me, if I didn't show up on time so I hurried my footsteps and made it to Professor McGonagall's office with only seconds to spare.

"Hello Miss Potter - are you all right dear?" she asked looking concerned when she saw my face.

"I'm fine," I said as I sat down. "So we're talking about careers?"

"As soon as Dolores gets in here," she grumbled.

My heart sank even further knowing that Umbridge had to be present for this meeting, but I guess that she established that she must oversee each and every thing that goes on in this school. Professor McGonagall looked just as displeased about the subject as I did when she sat down on the other side of the desk and she let out a big sigh when the Headmistress walked into the room.

"Ah, hello," she said in a falsely cheery voice. "Let's see what we have here - "

"I thought that I was supposed to be talking to Professor McGonagall," I said bluntly. "You aren't my head of the house."

"Thank you Miss Potter," McGonagall smiled. "Now, you've been brought in today to discuss your future and what you plan to do once you leave Hogwarts. Do you have any ideas as to what you would like to pursue as a career?"

Umbride, who had taken a seat behind Professor McGonagall, looked at me expectantly after she finished writing down some notes. What could she possibly be getting from this?

"Well..." I said hesitantly. "I've thought about doing something with Potions - I've been told that I would be a fairly good teacher if I wanted to be one."

"I would have to agree with whoever told you that Miss Potter," McGonagall smiled at me. "I've taken note that your best subject right now is in Professor Snape's class and he only has good things to say about you as a student - "

A loud scoff suddenly erupted from Umbridge's mouth and both McGonagall and I looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. She was still taking notes and looked surprised when she noticed that we were both looking at her.

"Is there a problem Dolores?" McGonagall asked.

"Not at all," Umbridge smiled cruelly.

"Anyway," McGonagall continued. "I've heard that you have successfully helped a number of students with their Potions work and you are currently the top of your class with that subject. I also heard that you received an Outstanding on your preparatory work for the OWLs, is this true?"

"It's true," I said. "But that was only practice."

"Which is fantastic," McGonagall said proudly. "I assume that you will do excellent on the OWL for that subject and you should plan on moving onto the NEWT course for the subject so that you can further your education there. But even after you complete your courses, you are going to be required to be a shadow on a Potions Master so that you may qualify to be a teacher in the subject - "

"Hem, hem."

"Do you need something Dolores?" McGonagall said irritably. "I'm trying to help a student and it will go along much faster if you stop interrupting me."

"I just have a question in the matter," Umbridge said. "I'm wondering if Miss Potter here even has the patience or the correct attitude to become an educator."

"I assure you that she does," McGonagall said. "I've been teaching her since her first day in this school and I can promise you that she meets all of the requirements to become an educator - and she will be qualified once she completes the courses that I have stated."

"I cannot agree with you," Umbridge said. "Miss Potter and her brother are two of the most misbehaved children. I assume that it has to do with the fact that they were raised by Muggles and I'm sure that - "

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked defensively. "Loads of children in this school were raised by Muggles and that hasn't stopped them from being some of the most successful people here."

"I'm saying that it isn't proper," she said. "Your parents should have - "

"My parents are dead," I said quickly. "And the Dursleys have done a well enough job of raising me. They may be Muggles and I may not have enjoyed every day of living with them, but I am happy to say that they did a better job raising me than your parents did."

McGonagall's hand quickly flew to her mouth to stifle the laugh that she almost let out. Umbridge looked angry and offended at what I said, but I honestly couldn't care what she thought of me even if I really wanted to.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," she said angrily.

"Not like it matters," I muttered. "We're losing anyway."

"Okay, well I do believe that we have discussed what we needed to," McGonagall said with a large smile, and I had a feeling that it didn't have to do with our discussion about my future. "As long as you continue to do outstanding in Potions your goal shouldn't be difficult to accomplish."

"Thank you Professor. It's been a pleasure talking to you," I said and then turned to Umbridge. "I can't say the same to you."

Before she had a chance to even say another word to me, I was out of the door and making my way down the hallway. I smiled at the thought that I left her at least agitated, but immediately got concerned when I saw Harry walking down the hallway.

"How long have you been out?" he asked me. "Am I that late?"

"No, I think you're right on time," I said. "But you might want to watch out - I'm pretty sure that McGonagall is about two minutes from killing Umbridge."

"I'll be happy to help her with that," he smirked. "Could you go talk to Fred and George to see what they're up to?"

"Why?" I asked. "What were they doing?"

"They haven't done anything yet to my knowledge," he shrugged. "I just wanted to know when they're planning their big event - they're in the Great Hall right now."

"I'll go see," I said. "You need to hurry before you're late."

"Right - I'll see you later," he said.

We both walked quickly down the corridor in the opposite direction to our destination. I flew through the hallways and ignored the startled portraits I passed as they yelled at me for surprising them. Within the next few minutes I found myself walking into the Great Hall where I saw several people just talking. When I spotted Fred and George sitting alone at the Gryffindor table, I made my way over to them.

"Hey, what are you two up to?" I asked them.

"Just planning a murder - what do you think?" Fred asked.

"Don't get sassy with me," I laughed. "So have you all come up with your grand escape?"

"She knows that we're going to be leaving?" Fred asked George.

"Yeah, I told her earlier," George said. "And yes, we do have something planned."

"We've had the basic idea for a while now," Fred said. "We just finished up fine tuning everything so it'll be perfect."

"You're doing this now?" I asked in disbelief.

"Why wait?" Fred shrugged.

My jaw dropped, but I guess that I shouldn't have been that surprised. When the twins wanted something done they normally didn't just wait around for things to happen. I started to say something else when I found Hermione walking over to us looking urgent and disapproving.

"Are you all really going to do this?" she asked.

"Of course we are," George said.

"If we're going to ditch this school then we at least owe everyone a spectacle," Fred said.

"It's just our style," George shrugged.

"Fine," Hermione sighed and sat down.

"You aren't going to try to stop us?" Fred asked.

"Why bother?" she laughed. "It's not like it's ever worked before."

"True," George agreed.

It hit me then that Hermione seemed oddly depressed. Was she upset that they were going to be leaving or was it just my imagination?

"You're going to miss us, aren't you?" Fred asked looking smug.

"Of course I will," she smiled. "Your childish pranks always made the days more bearable."

"You're joking," George laughed. "You were always trying to stop us."

"Only because I'm a prefect," she said. "And they could have gotten you in a lot of trouble."

"It was always worth getting in trouble," Fred said.

"Well, good luck," Hermione said.

Fred and George both smiled as they stood up and began to walk out of the room. That's when I suddenly realized that this may be the last time that I see them in a long time.

"Wait!" I called.

Hermione ran with me to them and we all got together in a group hug. Sure, it was a bit cheesy - but who doesn't like cheese?

"We'll keep in touch," Fred told us.

"You better," I said. "Are you all going to need any help setting up?"

"No," George said. "I think that this is more of something that we have to do by ourselves. Besides, we're creating the distraction so you and Harry can go up into Umbridge's office."

"About that," Hermione said looking skeptical.

"I already know that you don't want us going Hermione," I sighed. "But we wanted to talk to Sirius - "

"I know that I can't stop you from that now," Hermione said. "But I don't think that it is wise for both of you to go into her office."

"Why not?" Fred, George, and I asked at once.

"Because it's risky enough as it is," Hermione said. "I think that one of you should go into the office while the other makes sure that Umbridge stays away."

What she was saying made sense. It would be much better if one of us kept watched to make sure that the distraction was working.

"But isn't that why we are here?" Fred asked.

"You're going to provide the main distraction, but who's to say that she won't race back to her office during all of this mess?" Hermione asked.

"Fine," I said. "If it makes you feel any better than I will stay back and make sure that Harry doesn't get caught. He needs to talk to Sirius more than I do anyway."

It was true - Harry needed this more than me. His biggest concern with what we saw in Snape's office was our father's behavior. Although I wasn't happy about that either, I know that it bothered him more because he had always been compared to our father and I think that he feared that he was like that as well. Nothing I said could help the matter because he needed to speak to someone that knew our father and could assure him that he wasn't always the cruel person that we saw in Snape's memory.

"What do you suppose I do if Umbridge does go for her office during all of this?" I asked. "How am I supposed to tell Harry?"

"We need some sort of signal…" Hermione thought aloud. "Of course - just tell him that the signal will be the Galleon we used for the DA. It'll burn hot if we need him to get out of there."

"Excellent," I said. "I guess that I should go and find him now."

"We're going to start this now, so get a move on," Fred said.

"Okay, good luck!" I said nervously.

Fred went to run off, but George stayed back for a minute and looked at me with a small, nervous smile. It made me feel bad that I was keeping him back from what he wanted to do, so I just smiled back.

"Go have some fun," I said. "Don't worry about me - I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Positive," I said. "Just make sure to not leave without saying goodbye."

"Have I told you how much I love you?" he smiled.

"A few times," I shrugged. "But it doesn't hurt to say it more often."

He stepped over and kissed me and then I watched as Fred walked back over and grabbed his brother by the arm and dragged him away.

"We need to get going now," Fred said. "We'll see you later Emily."

"Take care of him for me Fred," I waved. "And have fun."

"Sure thing," Fred replied.

I raced through the hallways towards Professor McGonagall's where I expected to see Harry coming out of soon enough. That's when I saw a mass of colorful sparklers fly past my head and burst into and enormous display of fireworks right in front of me and I stopped dead in my tracks. It had already started - what if Harry was already going to Umbridge's office?

I started running again immediately and then turned a corridor to find myself smashing into a person and falling to the ground with a loud smack.

"AHHH!" we both shouted as we fell to the ground.

For a moment I just sat there and then I began to rub my aching head as I stood up.

"Sorry about that - oh, it's you," Harry said.

"Great, I was just looking for you," I said.

"Are you ready to go to Umbridge's?" he asked. "She just ran off to see what was going on with Professor McGonagall."

"Great, I need to find her," I said. "Look, Hermione said that she doesn't think it's a good idea for us both to go because it would look even more suspicious if she found us."

"So you don't want to go?" he asked.

"I do, but I have a plan worked out," I said. "I'm going to keep an eye on Umbridge while you talk to Sirius in her office. I figured that if I keep within her distance then she won't be suspicious of either of us because we aren't together."

"And what happens if she comes back to her office with me there?" he asked.

"You still have the Galleon from when we had DA meetings, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's in my pocket," he nodded.

"Great, so if it burns hot then she's coming, okay?" I said. "Since you have the one that changes it, we're going to have to switch."

He reached into his pocket and switched Galleons with me just as an enormous sparkling dragon flew over our heads and exploded a couple of yards away from us.

"You better go," I said. "Fred and George are good at distractions, but we shouldn't risk anymore than we already are. And remember - I you feel the Galleon then you need to get out of there immediately, understood?"

"Understood," Harry nodded.

"Good luck," I smiled.

"You too," he smiled back. "I'll see you later."

We both ran off in the opposite direction and I immediately went on to where I saw Umbridge disappear. When I got into one of the main hallways, I found that they were totally crowded with students who were all looking to see what the Weasley twin's latest trick was. It was then that I realized the huge disadvantage of being short as I attempted to look over everyone to find where Umbridge was.

"Emily!"

I looked around to find who was calling me and ended up getting shoved by three people who were walking passed. Now I suddenly remembered why I hated large crowds...

"Emily - over here!"

It was Ron and he was only a few feet or do away from me. He made his way through the rows of people with Hermione and Neville following close behind him. They caught up to me fairly quickly, much to the dislike of the people that they were pushing through.

"Can you see Umbridge anywhere?" I asked.

Ron and Neville, being significantly taller than Hermione and me, looked over the heads of the people around us for a moment before Ron pointed ahead.

"There she is," Ron said. "She's towards the front of the crowd - you can see her bow there."

"Oh I see her," Neville said.

"I don't," Hermione and I muttered.

"Why do you need to know where she is?" Neville asked.

"We need to keep an eye on her," I said. "If you see her go away from what's going on or in the general direction of her office then you need to say something."

"Does this have anything to do with Harry?" he asked. "Because I don't see him and you two are normally joined at the hip during things like this."

"Oh, yeah it does," Ron said. "He's going to talk to - "

"Snuffles," I said quickly.

"Snuffles - oh, right," Neville said.

"You told him the codename?" Ron asked.

"I figured it would make things easier," I shrugged.

Fireworks exploded over our head and everyone began to cheer and I smiled as I watched my boyfriend and his identical twin brother fly over our heads on a pair of broomsticks.

"Mum and Dad will be so proud," Ron laughed. "I can only imagine Mum's face when they get back to the house."

"It isn't like they didn't expect that something like this would happen anyway," I shrugged. "And we might as well enjoy it while we can."

"STOP THEM!"

I didn't even have to see her say it to know that it was Umbridge and I only had to wait a moment longer to see her racing through the cheering crowd after the two boys that were flying throughout the halls of the school causing chaos.

There were dungbombs being thrown all over, fireworks bursting into the air, sparklers rapidly chasing all of the Slytherins around the corridors - it was a complete madhouse that looked like it came out of one of Fred and George's greatest dreams. It was everything that they could hope to have for their grand escape and it was something that was guaranteed to go down in the school's history.

"Have you seen what they've done to Umbridge's office?"

I turned around and found Harry standing right next to me and he had a large smile on his face.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Well, it isn't actually in her office," Harry shrugged. "But it's right in the way to it - come see it!"

Harry led Ron, Hermione, Neville, and me through the cheerful crowd and soon enough we found our way to the place that Fred and George landed, looking very proud of the work that sat behind them.

There was an enormous swamp lying directly in the way of her office and I watched as she raced over towards it and gasped in horror. Her head jerked up suddenly and she gave Fred and George a glare that couldn't be forgotten easily.

"You are both going to get rid of this _immediately_," she snarled. "And then you will learn the true meaning of punishment."

"I don't think that we will," Fred said casually. "What are you thinking George?"

"I couldn't agree more brother," he said while patting Fred on the shoulder.

The two smiled at each other and I half expected smoke to start rolling out of Umbridge's ears because of how angry she looked. Filch, who was standing behind her, looked both horrified and concerned about the scene in front of him - probably because he thought that he was going to have to clean it up.

"I would like to thank you all for watching our presentation," Fred bowed.

"All of the products that you've seen today can be bought at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes in Diagon Alley this weekend during our grand opening," George said with a large smile.

"Argus - get them now," Umbridge seethed. "I've heard enough of this nonsense."

"We may be leaving," George said. "But we certainly aren't leaving with you."

"I can't say that it's been a pleasure meeting you," Fred grinned at Umbridge. "I hope that you have an awful life. Are you ready to leave George?"

"Sure thing," George said. "But one more thing - "

He stepped over to me and everyone watched as he grabbed me around the waist and kissed me fully on the mouth. Everyone around us cheered as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"I have had _enough_ of this!" Umbridge shouted. "Get them!"

George let go of me as Fred raced over towards him with his broom while Filch stepped through the crowd to get over to them.

"Love you babe," George winked. "And I'll see you soon."

"I love you too - wait, what do you mean you'll see me soon?" I asked.

"You'll see," he smiled devilishly.

They both jumped on their brooms and they were in the air again just as Filch got to them. They smiled and saluted to us all before they flew off through the corridors. Everyone raced to keep up with them and we ran out into the courtyard to watch them as they flew out into the sky and away from Hogwarts leaving me wondering when I would get to see them again.

* * *

Days had gone by since their escape, but Fred and George were still the talk of the school because of how they stood up to Umbridge. The thing that shocked me the most was that they had even inspired more people to start these pranks on the new Headmistress to make her life even more miserable than it already was. Peeves had even joined in with all of the madness and it really proved that Fred and George were the only students that the Poltergeist admired.

My favorite part of the whole ordeal was that the swamp that was placed in front of her office proved to be impossible to remove much to Umbridge and Filch's dismay. Since Fred and George hadn't told anyone how to get rid of it, they just roped it off and hoped that it would go away on its own. A part of me wondered if Professor Flitwick knew how to get rid of it by magic because I now saw him walking around it more frequently than any other teacher and the scene of it always seemed to brighten his mood.

"Do you think that they'll ever get rid of it?" Neville asked when we were admiring it as we passed by it before lunch period.

"I hope not," I sighed as we stopped to look at it. "It makes me happy to know how much emotional pain that they caused her."

"Did you hear that some third years put some Nifflers in her office?" Neville smirked. "Apparently she had a time getting them away from the rings on her fingers."

"That was a clever idea," I said with a laugh.

"Funny, I didn't think so."

I closed my eyes just as I saw Neville's face go pale. It was Umbridge and she was standing directly behind me. I opened my eyes again and rolled them before turning around to face her.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"First of all, I would like to take ten points from Gryffindor for that little comment," she sneered. "And secondly, I know that you know how to get rid of this thing."

"The swamp?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course the swamp," she said irritably.

"I don't know how to get rid of it," I said honestly.

"Don't lie to me - that's another five points," she snarled.

"You really need to stop taking away points," I said. "In case you haven't noticed, it's completely pointless because we don't even have any in the first place. I don't know how to get rid of the swamp - Fred and George never told me."

"She really doesn't," Neville said. "She would have told me by now if she did."

"ENOUGH!" she shouted, a vain bulging from her head with anger. "I have had _enough_ of this - tell me how to get rid of this thing before I EXPELL you filthy little - "

"I hardly think that is necessary Dolores."

My stomach nearly did a backflip when I heard Snape's voice beside me. He walked up to us and looked down at Umbridge as though she was some sort of insect.

"And why not Severus?" she asked.

"Do you honestly believe that a child could possibly know something that you do not?" he asked. "I doubt that the boys that put it here even know how to get rid of this thing. Now, I suggest that you go speak to our Charms professor, he may know a solution to this mess - in the mean time you might want to check one of those _lovely_ Ministry approved handbooks on how to speak to students as I hardly believe that you behavior a moment ago was appropriate."

"You have no right - " she started and then stopped to put on a false smile. "Never mind. I'll go speak to someone about getting this cleared up."

"Fantastic," Snape said without looking fascinated at all in what she had to say.

When Umbridge walked quickly away from us, I looked towards the ground so that I wouldn't have to look Snape in the eye.

"Thank you," I said.

"I like the swamp," he said. "It was a nice touch."

"Do you really think that Professor Flitwick knows how to get rid of it?" I asked.

"I'm sure that he does," he said. "But I highly doubt that he's going to let her know that."

I paused, not knowing what to say. It didn't make much sense for him to be talking to me now if he was still angry with me unless he had found some way to forgive me. I wanted to say something to him about it, but I found it difficult with Neville standing beside me. I looked up at my friend and he seemed to understand.

"I think I'm going to go see if they have some pudding..." Neville murmured.

He walked off and I was left in an awkward sort of silence with Snape as he looked at the swamp next to us.

"I'm sorry for what I did," I said quickly. "I shouldn't have been angry with you - it was my fault - I shouldn't have looked through the Pensieve."

"Just don't do it again," he said without meeting my eyes. "There is a reason that I keep things private."

"Right..." I said hesitantly. "And I'm sorry for what...happened in that memory..."

"It isn't your fault," he said. "It happened years ago."

"Time doesn't change the fact that it happened," I said.

"I know..." he said. "And I would like to apologize for what you heard...it wasn't one of my proudest moments."

"I shouldn't have heard it in the first place," I said.

"It still happened," Snape said shamefully. "And I'm not proud of it."

"I never said that you were," I said.

We were silent for a moment and I suddenly realized that I had my potions teacher back as a friend. It was strange when he didn't want to speak me and I was glad that it was over. I wanted to ask about the Occlumency lessons, but I had a feeling that he wouldn't want to do them anymore considering what happened.

Something told me that Sirius would have wanted me to demand more lessons from him because Harry had told me how angry our godfather had been when he heard that Snape had quit on us, but he also didn't know the circumstances. He also didn't seem to regret what he did to Snape as a child either - it was more of a game to him.

I looked back up at Snape and he looked down at me. I gave him a smile and then opened up my arms for a hug. He rolled his eyes and looked around to make sure there weren't any witnesses to this rare occasion that he showed that he had a heart in him. He pulled me over to him and gave me a long hug.

I suddenly felt like things might get easier as long as I had Snape on my side.

* * *

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	42. Quidditch Final and a Giant Problem

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

**Chapter 42**

"Do you think that we have any chance?" Ron asked me at breakfast.

"I think we might," I said. "We all just need to really concentrate and maybe we could have a chance at winning. We really can't get much worse anyway, so we might as well embrace it and move on."

"Exactly," Ron nodded optimistically.

The final Quidditch game was today and everyone on the team was freaking out over the possibility of getting the Quidditch Cup. The chances, in my own opinion, were slim to none, but that didn't mean that we should give up all hope. It couldn't hurt to try even though we had one of the worst playing teams in the school.

Harry, who was sitting next to me, was looking particularly glum today. I had a feeling that it had to do with the fact that he couldn't play the final Quidditch game that would determine if we won the cup. Either that or that we were playing against Ravenclaw which meant that Cho was going to be playing as well.

"Hey Potter!"

I turned around and Draco was coming over to our table with Crabbe and Goyle with a very smug look on his face. What did he want this time?

"How does it feel knowing that your team is going to lose and you can't do anything about it?" Draco sneered.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember you winning the Quidditch Cup, so why don't you shut your mouth?" I said.

"And you honestly believe that you have a chance of winning it?" he sneered.

"Yup," I said with a big smile.

"You're optimism makes me laugh," he said. "Good luck with the game - you're going to need it."

"You want us to win, don't lie," I said.

"Oh, you've caught me," Draco said sarcastically. "I'm secretly Gryffindor's biggest fan."

"I knew it all along," I sighed.

He laughed and rolled his eyes before he walked off towards the Slytherin table again. It sort of amused me that he always made a point to come over and try to kill our spirits before the game. He should know by now that we don't take anything that he says to heart. Ever since Moody turned into a ferret last year I haven't been able to take him seriously.

When I turned back around, I noticed Angelina walking over to us with a very serious expression on her face. She seems to always look like she's going to panic whenever we have a game.

"Are you two ready?" she asked Ron and me.

"Ready as we'll ever be," I shrugged before turning to Harry, Hermione, and Neville. "I'll see you all after the game."

"Good luck," they all said at once.

Angelina walked ahead of us as Ron and I walked out of the Great Hall. Something about this felt different - maybe it was because Fred and George weren't here to wish us good luck like they always did. I really missed George even though it hadn't been that long since I had seen him last. I haven't received any letters from him yet, but I suspected that Umbridge had something to do with that.

The only thing that I had on my mind as I walked into the locker room was what George had said to me before he took off. What did he mean that I would be seeing him sooner than I thought? Was he planning something else or was he referring to the fact that we didn't have much longer until summer break when I would see him again? It was hard to say with George - he wasn't always a predictable person.

"Okay everyone, we need to focus," Angelina began. "This is the last game that we have this year and it is by far the most important. As you may have noticed, our game record hasn't been the greatest this year, but we aren't going to stop it from winning this game today. If we defeat Ravenclaw today, the Quidditch Cup is ours."

"So no pressure if we lose or anything," Andrew muttered.

"Quiet Andrew - this is serious," Angelina said. "We all need to work together today. We are a team and a team helps each other at all costs. I'm asking you - begging you - to throw aside your differences until the end of this game so that we can perform our very best, is that understood?"

Everyone nodded, but I secretly wanted to roll my eyes. To be honest, there was only one person on this team that got on my nerves and that was Andrew and I wasn't so sure if I would be able to resist the urge to hit him in the head with a bat.

"Okay everyone," Angelina said. "Let's do this."

We all walked up to the edge of the stadium and waited for Lee to call out our team. He was still calling out Ravenclaw's team, so we all shifted around nervously as we waited. Out of all of us, I wasn't too surprised to see that Ron looked the most nervous. Well, it was a close competition between him and Angelina, but he looked like he was ready to piss himself.

"You're going to be fine Ron," I said. "Just don't let anyone freak you out."

"They already are," Ron murmured. "I can already hear them chanting that bloody song."

I was sort of hoping that he wasn't hearing them, but apparently I was wrong. Through all of the chatting up in the stands, a clear verse of "Weasley is Our King" could be heard.

"Just ignore them," I patted his back. "And remember that Malfoy couldn't get the Quidditch Cup if he wanted to."

"Right," he nodded nervously.

A moment later we found ourselves walking onto the field as our names were called out. I looked up at the stadium and saw the enormous crowd of people. From the Gryffindor side I could see a large banner with all of our names blinking and from the Ravenclaw side I watched as an enormous eagle flew around - I suspected that Luna had something to do with that.

Both of the teams lined up at the center of the field and Madam Hooch came over to give us our usual pre-game speech about playing fair and all that. I looked over at Cho and grimaced when I saw that her face was reddened from crying. It was like her eyes were faucets that never turned off - she was always crying. Part of me wondered what had upset her this time, but the other side of me really didn't care that much because she was always like this.

"Okay, may the best team win," Madam Hooch said.

We all mounted our brooms and flew off into the sky. I looked down below and watched as Madam Hooch released the Snitch and Bludgers into the air. We all sat still in the air until she finally threw the Quaffle and the game began.

"Johnson with the Quaffle - oh no, here comes the Bludger - saved by Potter!" Lee yelled into the speaker. "Fine girl that is - shame that Weasley had to go and take her - OUCH! No need for violence Professor."

I didn't need to look down at the stands to know that Professor McGonagall had just smacked him in the head for getting off topic. I swear that he does that every game that we have.

We made our first goal within a matter of minutes, probably only because the Bludger that I hit happened to whack the Keeper right in the arm as a distraction. Funny how those things happen when I don't even mean for them to.

When the Quaffle was thrown back into play, I watched as the Chaser soared across the field towards a really nervous looking Ron. I nearly closed my eyes as the Ravenclaw Chasers threw the Quaffle, but I couldn't bear to miss it. My jaw nearly dropped when Ron whacked the Quaffle away from the right post so that it would fly back into Alicia's arms.

A loud cheer could be heard from the Gryffindor side and I cheered right along with them before I raced along with Alicia as she made her way back across the field. Just as I made it within a few yards of her, the Bludger came flying towards her and my eyes widened because I knew that I wasn't going to make it there in time.

My eyes darted over to Andrew who came flying from the other side of her and just barely missed the Bludger that smacked the Quaffle right out of Alicia's hands and into mid air. One of the Ravenclaw Chasers quickly grabbed a hold of it and went racing back towards Ron.

"Where were you?" Andrew shouted as he passed me.

"Me?" I shouted back. "You were right next to her - you were the one that missed it!"

"Stop fighting you two!" Alicia shouted. "Just get to him before they make it to Ron!"

Andrew and I raced along the opposite sides of the field so that we were on either side of the Ravenclaw Chasers. We both zoned in on him quickly and were right on his heels when he tossed the Quaffle right towards the hoop - it went right through and the Ravenclaw side cheered loudly.

"Nice going Weasley," Andrew scoffed.

"Like you even have room to talk," I snarled. "You literally just missed the Bludger that sent the Quaffle this way - "

"Please, don't act like you had nothing to do with this - " Andrew started.

"Listen, I've heard enough from you - " I started.

"Both of you - we have a game going on here!" Ginny shouted as she passed us.

He rolled his eyes and took off towards Ravenclaw's goals and I turned back to Ron who was looking a bit glum.

"Don't listen to him," I said. "You're doing great - you already blocked the first one. Just keep it up, alright?"

"Sure," he nodded. "I'll just save the rest of them, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Good luck!"

I flew off towards the Gryffindor Chasers and followed them around for the most part for the rest of the game. What surprised me the most, and I'm pretty sure it surprised everyone, that Ron managed to keep off the rest of the Quaffles that were sent his way. I'm not sure if it was just luck or if he had finally managed to overcome his nervousness on the field.

"If he keeps this up then we might win the game," Angelina said as I passed her.

"He might not need to," I said as I stopped suddenly.

"What do you mean - oh," she said.

Both of us watched in silence as Ginny suddenly swerved in the field and shot right up towards where Cho was idly flying by. Right above her, I could make out a small, golden sparkle that was floating around, but that was only because Ginny was in arms length of it. Cho suddenly looked very shocked and attempted to catch the golden ball, but narrowly missed it as Ginny grabbed it easily into her hand.

"WE WON!" Angelina shouted. "WE WON THE GAME!"

We all flew quickly to the ground as the crowd cheered for our win and Angelina was nearly in tears as the team crowded around her. When Ron ran over to us, he had the biggest smile on his face. I was thoroughly shocked when he picked me up and spun me around on the field.

"We won!" he yelled.

I started laughing when he put me back down and then we ran over to the rest of the team to celebrate. Right when I thought that Angelina couldn't get any happier, Madam Hooch walked over with the Quidditch Cup which nearly made her hysterical.

"Congratulations to the Gryffindor team on the Quidditch Cup!" Madam Hooch said as she handed Angelina the trophy.

We all cheered as we ran off the field with our trophy in hand. I couldn't believe that we had managed to scrape up a victory in all of this mess. I couldn't have imagined that this would have happened when I first made the team and I certainly didn't think that Angelina did either. So I guess that it was a surprise for everyone.

"Congratulations Miss Potter."

I smiled as I saw Snape walking alongside of me looking defeated, yet somehow smug.

"Thank you, sir," I smiled back. "Even though I'm sure that you would have been much happier to have this in your office."

"I have enough trophies in my office," he shrugged. "I pitied Minerva for having such a vacant shelf to show off her winnings."

"Are you implying that you let us get this?" I asked as I pointed to the trophy.

"I might be," he smirked.

"Please, we could have beaten the Slytherin team with our hands tied behind our backs," I said.

He rolled his eyes and let out a small laugh.

"Don't get cocky now," he said.

"Like your team isn't?" I laughed.

"They have every right to be," Snape said. "They are the best team."

"I'm sorry, I do believe that we are the team with the trophy," I said.

"For now," he said.

"Sounds like a threat," I said.

"More like a promise," he said.

"I take that as a challenge," I said happily.

"Does that mean that you're planning on doing this again next year?" he asked.

"I might," I shrugged. "Haven't really thought too much about it."

"You should," he said.

"Is that a compliment?" I asked.

"Not at all," he said with a smug grin. "I just want you to know how it feels to lose next year."

"You seem to be awfully confident for a losing team," I said.

"Just go celebrate," he mumbled.

"Thanks for allowing me too," I laughed.

I ran off with the rest of my team to meet up in the locker room. I changed quickly and met up with Ron on the way back out of the stadium. Most of the team caught up to us all and I don't think I remembered a time where we were all happier than we were now.

"Sorry for blaming you Ron," Andrew said. "You did good today."

"Thanks mate," Ron smiled. "You didn't do so bad yourself."

We all talked about the highlights of the game until I caught sight of Harry and Hermione walking in the distance. I could see Hagrid walking close behind them and something about all of them seemed off. Why were they coming from what seemed to be Hagrid's hut? Had they not stuck around to watch the game because they assumed we would lose? No, that couldn't be right. Something about their faces told me otherwise.

"I'll see you all later," I said offhandedly to the team.

They all continued to walk and talk as I went over to catch up with Harry and Hermione. The closer I got, the more worried I was. Something about the way they looked made me concerned. They both looked like they were terrified and I didn't understand why.

"Hey!" I called as I got a few feet away from them.

"Oh, hey," Harry said. "Did you all win?"

"Er…yes," I said. "We got the Quidditch Cup - where were you two?"

"We went with Hagrid," Hermione said.

"For what?" I asked as I eyed Hagrid who was walking into his hut.

"Well…it's difficult to explain," Hermione said hesitantly.

"What do you mean?" I asked, becoming more confused by the minute.

Harry looked around to make sure that no one was close enough to hear him before he started to explain.

"Hagrid took us into the Forbidden Forest to show us something," Harry said. "He would have shown you and Ron too, but you two were playing Quidditch…"

"What did he need to show you?" I asked.

"Well…you know how he went to talk with the giants, right?" Hermione said slowly.

"Yes," I said.

I wasn't sure where this was going, but I could already tell that it wasn't going to be good. What did Hagrid's trip to the giants have anything to do with what was in the Forbidden Forest.

"He sort of…brought something along with him," Harry said.

"You don't mean that he brought one of them with him?" I asked without really wanting to know the answer.

"That's exactly what he did," Harry said.

"You're joking," I said, feeling my face fall with every word. "Hagrid brought a giant to Hogwarts - this has to be some sort of joke."

"I wish it was," Hermione said miserably.

"Why would he do that?" I asked.

"Well, the one that he brought isn't just any giant," Harry said. "It's his brother, well - his half-brother."

"What?" I asked in shock.

"Before you freak out too much, Grawp isn't exactly as big of a giant as the rest," Hermione said.

"It doesn't matter how big of a giant he is!" I said. "He shouldn't have brought him in the first place."

"I agree," Harry said. "But he told us that he would have died if he left him. Apparently the other giants were beating up on him."

"So he brought it here?" I asked.

"Where else could he bring it Emily?" Hermione asked. "Giants aren't accepted in the world. Just look at how they treat Hagrid and he's only a third of the size of his brother."

I closed my eyes and shook my head. I know that Hagrid may have had good intentions, but there will be horrible consequences if anyone finds out - especially Umbridge.

"What did he show you for?" I asked. "Why did he need us to know this?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other skeptically.

"Well, that's what we wanted to talk to you about," Hermione said.

"He wants us to take care of it if Umbridge gives him the sack," Harry said.

"He wants us to WHAT?" I asked.

I looked around and found that a few passerby's had heard me yelling. Judging by their questioning looks, they didn't seem to know what was going on.

"Listen," Harry said. "He only wants us to go by and talk to it - give it company and maybe help it learn our language a little bit better. Hagrid said that Grawp should be able to take care of himself besides that."

"He wants us to teach a giant English?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "And how exactly are we going to do that?"

"I was sort of hoping that you could help us figure that one out," Harry said nervously. "When we were younger, you always did better than me in English class - "

"I did not - we got the same grades back," I said.

"Okay fine - you're just good at explaining things," Harry said. "I just need to know if you're going to help us."

"You know that I will," I sighed. "But it's completely mad."

"We know," Hermione sighed. "But we don't really have much of a choice now that we've made a promise to Hagrid."

We started to make our way back to the castle after that. There wasn't really any more that could be said now that they had made a promise to help Hagrid. Don't get me wrong - I was happy to help Hagrid, but I knew that this wasn't going to be a simple task. But who knows, maybe we wouldn't even need to go through with it. Maybe Umbridge wouldn't sack Hagrid before the end of the term - after all, he had already made it this far. But I also had this creeping feeling that she was going to sack him and leave us with one giant of a problem - pun intended.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up sometime around Thursday!**

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	43. So That's What He Meant

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 43**

If I thought that I had too much on my mind before, it was nothing in comparison to what was going on now. OWL's were quickly approaching which meant that all of the teachers and students were putting all of their effort into making sure that we did our very best. To be honest, I was only concerned about doing well on the Potions OWL because that was going to be the only one that really mattered to peruse the career that I wanted, but that didn't stop the other teachers from cramming all of the information that they could into our heads.

"How are you so calm about this?" Hermione asked. "This is a huge deal - this decides our fates!"

"I think you're overreacting a bit Hermione," I said with a weak laugh. "It's just a test - sure, it's important, but I feel that if you stress too much then you'll do worse. At least that's what my philosophy is."

"Sounds good to me," Ron nodded.

"You're just saying that because you're lazy," Hermione scolded. "You all should have started studying for these ages ago."

"Why would we start early?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "I think we're getting enough practice in right now with all of this cramming."

"Starting early is never a bad thing," Hermione said defensively. "You know what they say - the early bird gets the worm."

"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese," I shrugged.

"It's like you're reading my thoughts Emily," Ron laughed.

"I cannot believe you two…" Hermione sighed.

Harry walked over from the castle and sat down next to us around the tree and seemed to be as concerned about the OWL's as I was. I could see Hermione's point about being prepared for these tests because they really were important, but I honestly don't think that anyone needs to stress themselves over something like a test.

But as the tests grew nearer, I found myself pounding information into my head like every other fifth year at this school. It was announced that our first test would be in Charms, so I tried not to get worked up about it because that was a subject that I've always done fairly good in. The only problem that I seemed to be having during all of this was Hermione.

"Emily - you need to focus!" she demanded in the common room the day before the exam.

"It's going to be fine Hermione!" I said defensively. "I've been studying just like everyone else - "

"You need to study more!" she insisted. "The grade you get could alter your future completely."

"Hermione, you do realize that she wants to be a Potions teacher, right?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. "I don't think that Charms is really going to change that."

"It's still very important," she said as she shoved her head into another book of Charms.

I rolled my eyes and then looked back to my schedule for the OWLs. The one that I was looking forward to the very most was potions because, not only was that the most important, but I was also really interested to see what our assignment would be. I guess it was sort of geeky, but who really cares?

_Tap, tap._

I glanced over towards the window and found a large barn owl flapping its wings outside of it. In its claws I noticed an envelope. Assuming that it was for me, I walked over toward it and opened it up. I took the letter from the bird and handed it an owl treat that was sitting in a bag nearby before closing the window again.

"Who is that from?" Ron asked.

"No idea," I shrugged. "I haven't opened it."

"You should be studying," Hermoine mumbled.

"So should you," I retorted. "Stop talking."

Ron laughed and then I sat down on a couch and ripped open the letter.

_Emily,_

_Hey, sorry that it's taken me so long to send you anything, but we've been kind of busy back home. How are things going at Hogwarts? For some reason things seemed to be getting a little bit out of hand when I left, I have no idea why though (haha)._

_In case you were wondering, things back here are going great aside from the way Mum and Dad reacted to us showing up at their door early that morning. Needless to say, Mum nearly beat us over the head with a pan when she heard what we had done. I could have sworn that I saw Dad smile, but there's no way that he would admit that in front of Mum._

_Fred and I have been really busy lately and you're going to see soon why that is - I'm sure that it'll please you that we've put those Galleons that you and your brother gave us to really good use. I can't say that Fred fully agreed with all of the decisions that we made, but he'll get over it once he realizes how brilliant I am (can't imagine how he hasn't noticed by now)._

_Well, Fred has some new ideas that he wants to talk about, so I guess that I'll have to cut this letter short. I can't wait to see you again - I miss you very much and I hope that Umbridge isn't giving any of you a hard time._

_Love, George_

_P.S. By the way, I suggest that you take a trip to Hogsmeade this Wednesday…just a suggestion…_

_P.P.S. As I'm sure that Umbridge is screening this, I invite her to join you as well. I think that she'll be very happy to see what's going on._

This letter made me question what he was talking about even more. Why did he want me to go to Hogsmeade on Wednesday? I guess that he was going to be there, but why would he invite Umbridge? None of it really made much sense to me, but I guess that I would figure it all out this Wednesday.

_George,_

_You should have known that your mum would be upset with you, but I'm sure that she'll find the time to forgive you and we'll all have a good laugh about it in the future. You should know that you and Fred are practically looked at as gods here - everyone is still talking about what you two did. It's funny because it's seems like you've inspired some more pranksters, but none of them are nearly as good as you._

_Other than all of the usual madness, I don't think anyone has any time to think with the OWLs coming up. We have our first one on Monday in Charms and I think that I'll do okay on it. Hermione doesn't seem to think that any of us have studied enough, but no one can compare with her. The only OWL that I actually want to do good on is Potions and I'm pretty sure that I'm set with that one, I may need to look over some things just in case._

_What are you two up to? And why do you need me to go to Hogsmeade on Wednesday? What is it that Fred hasn't fully okay with? WHAT IS GOING ON GEORGE WEASLEY - THIS IS NOT OKAY!_

_Love, Emily_

_P.S. How's it going Umbridge - don't act like I don't know you're reading this._

"So who was it from?" Harry asked once I finished writing my response.

"George," I smiled. "He wants me to go to Hogsmeade on Wednesday. I couldn't imagine why - there's no way that Umbridge is going to want him to be walking distance from the castle."

"George never listens to the rules anyway," Ron shrugged. "And I'm sure that he'd risk anything just to be in walking distance from you. You should see him during the summer when he gets a letter from you - it's pathetic."

"What's pathetic?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "It's just embarrassing to see him like that."

"Don't be jealous," I smirked.

"Yeah right," he muttered.

"You'll understand once you start dating someone you care about," I said.

He rolled his eyes and then went right back to studying. Just before I started reading through my list of different Charms, I could have sworn that I saw him glance over at Hermione.

* * *

When the examination finally came around, every one of us was practically shaking with panic and cramming as many spells and charms into our heads as we possibly could. Out of all of us, Hermione was probably the most prepared, but that didn't mean that she was the most comfortable.

"I knew that I should have started studying earlier," she said as she paced around in the Gryffindor common room.

"Hermione, you practically started studying last year," Ron laughed. "You're going to be fine."

I looked over at a very pale looking Neville and could have sworn that he was only seconds from throwing up.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said wearily. "I'm not ready for this kind of test."

"You're going to do fine," I said. "You did fine yesterday when we were going over the charms."

"But what if I forget all of them when I actually get to the exam?" he asked in a panic-stricken voice.

"You just need to calm down," I said. "You're freaking yourself out. Just remember what you've been studying and try your best. You'll do fine - you have a good grade in that class too."

"So does Hermione, but look at her!" he said pointing at her as she continued to pace.

"Hermione - knock it off!" I said. "You're freaking everyone out."

"Oh...sorry," she said nervously as she sat down on the couch and started chewing her nails.

It felt like only a moment later we were standing in the Entrance Hall getting ready to take our written exam. When we finally went into the Great Hall and took our seats, I let out a huge sigh and leaned into the paper. Looking around, I suddenly remembered the memory we had seen in Snape's office. It didn't look any different now than it did then other than the people in the room. Everyone appeared to be overly stressed and focused on the work in front of them.

Just as I reached the end of the exam, Professor Flitwick announced that we had ten minutes left and I quickly wrote down what I remembered to be the counter-curse to Cheering Charms before I set my quill down and let out a final sigh of relief.

"Quills down - your time is up," Professor Flitwick announced.

I looked over at Harry and he gave me a weak smile before we were finally let out of the room so we could have a small lunch break before we returned for the practical exam. As all of the fifth years returned to eat lunch once the tables were set back up, you could practically feel the tension and nervousness in the room.

"So how do you think you did?" I asked everyone around me.

"I think I did okay," Hermione said. "I could have added a bit more to the part on Cheering Charms, but then I wouldn't have had time to go back and check number twenty-eight. By the way, do you think that the answer to that one was - "

"Hermione, we aren't discussing the questions," Ron said as he put his fingers to his temples. "I don't even want to talk about that bloody exam."

"At least we got the written part over with," I shrugged as I pushed around the carrots on my plate. "The practical part should be a breeze considering we were all in the DA."

"I really hope so," Neville said nervously.

Only moments later we found ourselves waiting in line to go take our exam. I sat down on a nearby bench outside of the Great Hall and let out a big sigh as I waited for my name to be called. Harry sat next to me, but neither of us managed to say anything because the nerves of the exams had finally set in.

When Neville's name was called, he jumped up from his seat and nearly knocked over Pavarti as she passed by him. He stumbled into the room and I gave him a quick thumbs-up for good luck and he gave me a nervous smile in return.

Not too much longer after he left, Professor Flitwick walked into the room and called out another set of names for examination.

"'Patil, Padma," he called. "Patil, Parvati; Potter, Emily; and Potter, Harry."

My eyes grew large and I suddenly regretted not going over my list of charms one more time as I stepped into the Great Hall. There were several different people from all of the houses in the room along with the examiners who were seated behind tables all around the room.

"Just over here," Professor Flitwick said.

I was placed at a table next to Pansy Parkinson who had been called just before me. I wasn't sure how far she had gotten in the examination, but judging by the horrified expression on her face I decided that it wasn't going so well for her.

The examiner that I got had a friendly smile on her face and she beckoned me to walk closer to the table as she looked at her chart to see who I was.

"You must be...Emily Potter," she read off. "Wait - are you one of the Potter twins?"

I heard Pansy scoff briefly next to me, but I shot her a look that shut her up immediately.

"Er...yes," I said awkwardly to the woman.

"Okay, well I suppose that we better get started," she said cheerfully. "Now don't be nervous and just do your best."

Once I had finished up with it, I felt that I had done fairly well on the exam. I only made a few small errors, but other than that everything went as planned. I felt like the only big mistake that I made was when I was supposed to shrink a rat, I managed to shrink every part of its body other than its tail, but I don't think that the examiner saw this as something she could fail me for.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked out of the door and I found Harry already waiting for me. Hermione and Ron were already in the common room when we made it up there and Hermione seemed to want to know every detail about our exam and was determined to retell what happened during hers.

"The man was very impressed," she said. "I did make a minor error of turning the rat's nose teal instead of blue, but I don't even think he noticed. Or maybe he did...do you think he could fail me for that - "

"Hermione, please stop," I said. "I'm already tired enough as it is and I don't want to talk about the exam anymore."

It was as if she hadn't even heard me because she kept going on about every single spell she used. Just when I thought she was going to stop, she started going on about the Transfiguration exam that we were going to have the next day and it was then that I decided that I needed to go to sleep.

* * *

I didn't think that Wednesday was ever going to come around, but it finally did and it felt like we had been taking exams for an eternity. My Transfiguration exam the day before went pretty well other than when I accidentally turned the plate into a frog instead of a chicken. I'm not really sure how that happened, but the examiner seemed to think it was pretty funny.

"Okay, I need to get going," I said as I finished the last of my sandwich. "George said that he should be in Hogsmeade around this time."

"You still don't know what he's up to?" Harry asked.

"No, he hasn't told me anything," I shrugged as I put on a light jacket. "I'll fill you all in on everything once I get back I guess."

"I just hope that it isn't something dangerous," Hermione sighed. "And you do realize that we have an OWL for Herbology today, right?"

"How could I forget?" I asked her. "I won't be late, it doesn't start for another four hours - I'll see you all later."

Before I walked off, I just waved back at them and quickly started walking towards the door. Before I made it out of the Entrance Hall, I found that the door was blocked by a particularly tall man wearing all black.

"Where are you going?" Snape asked.

"To China," I said sarcastically. "Where do you think I'm going?"

"Emily," he said warningly.

"Fine, I'm going to Hogsmeade," I said.

"And you thought that you could just walk over there without telling anyone?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Do you honestly think I was about to go waltzing up to Umbridge to ask her if I could go see my boyfriend?" I asked.

"What is Mr. Weasley doing in Hogsmeade?" he raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't he realize that if Umbridge sees him there that she will be personally escorted from the area?"

"She doesn't run Hogsmeade," I said bluntly. "And I could honestly care what she has to say and, judging by his lovely exit, I seriously doubt that George cares either."

Snape nodded for a moment and then shrugged.

"Well, I suppose that you could go," he said as he pulled a note from his pocket. "But to be on the safe side I'll write you a pass."

I took a quill from my bag and he quickly wrote the note and I gave him a smile before I went to walk away.

"Thanks," I said. "I'll see you later."

With a quick wave goodbye, I walked out of the

I stepped into the stone path that made the sidewalks of Hogsmeade and immediately saw the red-headed man I was looking for. George was looking through the windows of the Three Broomsticks before he turned to see me and suddenly grew an enormous smile on his face.

"Hey," I said cheerfully.

"Hey," he said back looking happier than ever.

He grabbed a hold of my hand and pulled me into a kiss. I wrapped my arms around him and he leaned his forehead onto mine.

"I've missed you," I said.

"I would have come sooner, but I had to wait for some space to clear out," he said.

"What do you mean," I asked as we separated and began walking down the street.

"You'll see in a minute," he smirked.

"You're being really...mysterious," I said trying to find the right word.

"I know," he said. "It's a turn on, isn't it?"

"You caught me," I winked as I held his hand again. "But it would be really nice to know what is going on."

"Can't a guy just come visit the woman that he loves?" he asked.

"That's sweet," I smiled. "But that's not the only reason that you're here."

"You're right," he said. "But patience would be nice, we're nearly there."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You ask way too many questions," he said as we turned the corner and stood in front of a fairly large, broken down building that I'd never noticed before now. George let go of my hand and stood in front of it with a big grin on his face.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"Of what...?" I asked hesitantly.

"The building of course," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"It looks sort of dangerous," I said honestly.

"Nothing a little bit of magic couldn't fix," he said looking proud. "I think that it's perfect."

"What does this have to do with anything?" I asked him.

"Well, it's mine," he said. "Well, it's actually Fred's too, but it was my idea."

"You bought this place?" I asked in shock. "Why, what are you going to do with it?"

"We're going to fix it up first," he explained as he held onto my hand again and dragged me into the shabby building. "But it's going to be an extension of Weasley Wizard Wheezes!"

My jaw nearly dropped at the words - he was going to open a store in Hogsmeade? I could hardly believe that it was true.

"What, you don't think it's a good idea?" he said with his face dropping immediately.

"No - I think it's brilliant!" I said with a huge smile. "I couldn't think of a better place for it other than Diagon Alley. Just think of all the business you're going to get here when school's in session - it's going to be amazing!"

"It is going to be, isn't it?"

I looked up and a huge smile spread across my face when I saw Fred walking towards us. He opened up his arms and I stepped over and gave him a big hug. It was amazing how much happier that they seemed to be now that they weren't trapped in Hogwarts.

"How are you?" I asked him.

"I'm doing great," he said. "So you think that this place will go along okay?"

"Of course it will," I said. "It's right next to Hogwarts and Umbridge is in charge - the place is going to get great business."

"That's what I was thinking," Fred said. "It's all about the location - now we're going to have one open in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. We just need to hurry up and do renovations on the place so we can get it up and running before school lets out and we lose our customers."

"So what are you planning on doing with the place?" I asked.

"Well...we have a lot in mind," George said.

For the next half of an hour or so they showed me around the place and told me what all they wanted to have in the store and what all they were going to do with renovating to make it so it wouldn't look like the shack it was now. As we walked back towards the door, George said that he was going to go over to pick up some Butterbeers for us to celebrate the purchase of their store with.

"So how is school really?" Fred asked as he sat down on a barrel that was lying next to the door once George had gone. "Has Umbridge morphed into a toad yet?"

"You mean she wasn't before?" I said trying to look shocked.

"You make a good point," he laughed. "But really, she hasn't been giving you all a hard time, right?"

"She hasn't been treating us any differently than she did before you left," I shrugged. "But she did try to get me expelled for not telling her how to get rid of the swamp you two left behind."

"What - why would she think you knew?" he asked looking shocked.

"Maybe she figured that I was dating one of you so I would know," I shrugged. "It didn't matter anyway because Snape stopped her before she started screaming at me."

"Snape did?" he asked. "I didn't realize that you were still talking - George told me that you two were fighting."

"We were," I said. "But everything's better now."

"I've never been able to understand that bloke," Fred said. "He hates everyone in the school - especially the Gryffindors - but he talks to you like your his best friend. Why is that?"

"I'm not really sure," I said while looking down at my hands.

It wasn't a lie - I really wasn't sure why he treated me the way he did. I had thought before that it was because of the relationship that he had with my mother, but I wasn't so sure about that anymore. I still felt like they had been close at one point, but not everything added up yet for me to be positive about the relationship they had.

"Well, at least he's decent to someone," Fred sighed.

We looked out of the windows and watched as the barman from the Hog's Head walked past with his goat. The man looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it because he looked away too quickly for me to guess.

"It's a bit risky opening this place, isn't it?" Fred asked after a moment.

"How so?" I asked.

"We didn't exactly get our first business started before we opened this one," he said. "We don't really know how people are going to respond or if we're going to have that many customers yet."

"You're going to have plenty of customers," I said. "Trust me - people at Hogwarts are going to be dying to get into this shop, especially after what all you showed them on their last day. You two are practically gods at school."

"So I guess that it'll all be worth it if it goes that way," Fred said. "That's how I envisioned it when I said something to George about it."

"It's going to be huge," I said as I imagined what this place was going to look like in a years time.

I could see it now - the place was going to be packed with all different sorts of gadgets to prank your least favorite teacher and people were going to be lined up to get in. It was everything that Fred and George could ever dream of and more - they were going to be living the life that their parents thought would be impossible.

"That isn't the only reason that I wanted to open up the store here, you know?" Fred said, interrupting my thoughts.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I thought that it would be good if we had a place here so George could see you more often," he said without looking me in the eye. "I was feeling...sentimental..."

"And they say gingers don't have souls," I said with a smile.

"We don't have souls," he pointed out. "I don't know, it was just kind of depressing seeing George so unhappy. He didn't complain too much, but I knew that it was bothering him that he didn't get to see you and I figured that this would help."

I smiled and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. I don't think he would ever realize how much it meant to me that he would do something like that for us.

"Thank you," I said.

"Anytime," he smirked.

George just walked through the door and raised an eyebrow as he looked from Fred to me.

"So what's going on guys?" he asked.

"Oh, you know," Fred said. "Emily here was just telling me how amazing it is that we're opening a business here so she can spend more time with your better looking twin."

"I should have known this would happen," George said dramatically.

Fred and I rolled our eyes and took the Butterbeers from his hand and toasted to the new shop. It wasn't until about an hour later that I realized what time it was - I had about an hour left before the Herbology exam started and I had hardly studied for it.

"I hate to leave, but I have to," I said. "I have an OWL for Herbology coming up today."

"I hated that one," Fred grimaced. "The lady that I got kept looking at me like I was some sort of bug."

"You mean you aren't?" I teased.

"You're hilarious," Fred said with a smirk.

"I know, I think I missed my calling as a comedian," I said sarcastically. "So are you all going back home or are you going to be sticking around here for a bit?"

"We're going to finish out the week here to clean the place up, but we have to get back to Diagon Alley so we can set the place up," George said.

"So I guess that I could come by here later this week and you'll be here?" I asked.

"During the day we should be," George said.

"Great," I smiled. "I'll come by when I'm not cramming my head full of things for the OWLs."

"Don't worry about them too much," George said. "Their just tests."

"That's what I thought too," I said. "I thought that Hermione was going to murder me when I told her that. She claims that it's the most important test we'll ever be given."

"That's not true," Fred said. "We're tested everyday in life and people don't seem to take that as seriously as they should."

George and I raised our eyebrows and looked at each other and then back at Fred who was picking at some dirt that got stuck under his nails.

"When did you become so deep?" I asked with a laugh.

"That's what happens to you when you get out of school," Fred smirked.

"You've hardly been out," I laughed.

"Aren't you supposed to be studying for your OWL?" he said.

We all had a good laugh before I said my goodbyes and raced off towards the castle so I could get Neville to tell me everything he could before I had to take this Herbology OWL. But there was only one thing that seemed to make me feel happier about everything and that was the fact that George wasn't going to be that far away and that made everything else seem so much better.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! Sorry that it's up late, I don't really have much of an excuse other than things going on at my house (the usual drama, not that you really needed to know). Oh, and I'm sorry if this chapter seems a bit jumbled - I've had an incredibly bad headache all weak, so if you find an error of some kind just leave it in a review and I'll have it fixed (thanks!). The next chapter should be up around Tuesday!**

**So what do you think about what Fred and George were up to - could you see it coming? Do you think that it was a good idea?**

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	44. Looking Out for Others

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 44**

The remainder of the week seemed to drag along like summer time with the Dursleys usually did. We had exam after exam and I felt like my brain was practically throbbing from all of the information that I was taking in and just when I didn't think I would be able to take another test, the weekend finally came around to give us a break from all of the work. The only one that didn't seem to take this opportunity to rest was Hermione.

"You really should relax," I told Hermione as she flipped through another page of a Potions book.

"We have another OWL on Monday and I'm not risking anything for this one," she said. "I already know that my Ancient Runes one wasn't good because I mixed up a word with another and I don't want that sort of thing happening again."

"That was one word," I said. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

"That one word could be the mistake that leads to my failure!" she demanded with a crazed twitch of the eye. "It can't happen again Emily - you don't understand how important it is to me! Just because you don't study doesn't mean we all don't!"

Ron and Harry raised their eyebrow at her and I just let out a short laugh. I couldn't believe how irritable she was getting about all of this. I'm not really sure what she felt she had to prove with attempting to get an Outstanding on all of her OWLs, but of she was going to act like this in attempt to achieve that then I had no reason to stick around to hear her complaints.

"Fine," I said. "You go ahead and study hard and psyche yourself out. In the meantime, if you ever feel like taking a break, you can go to Hogsmeade where I will be saying goodbye to Fred and George."

"Are they going back today?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, they said that they need to sort out some things with their shop in Diagon Alley," I explained. "I wanted to talk to them about something before they left."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked as he sat back into his chair. "Are you and George fighting?"

"No, it's nothing like that," I sighed. "It just has to do with their business. I'm not sure that they are being entirely smart with their money."

"You mean that you don't think it's a good idea what they are doing in Hogsmeade?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure," I shrugged. "I mean, I'm sure that the business would do fine, but I'm not entirely sure that's why they opened it here. I"m just afraid that they only did it because George wants to be closer to me."

"And what's wrong with that?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing," I said. "I just don't know how smart it is to be making these sort of decisions this early."

"You have a good point," Ron said. "I'm not even sure how they made the money to open up the first shop, let alone the second one."

Harry and I looked at each other and let out a sort of nervous laugh making Ron and Hermione look at us suspiciously. We never told them before that it was us that gave Fred and George the money to start their dream because we knew that Mrs. Weasley would knock us upside the head if she found out about it and we just never really felt the need for anyone else to know about it. Now that their wealth was being questioned, we both quickly explained to them that it was us.

"I should have known that it was you two," Hermione said. "But I'm just happy that they didn't do something illegal..."

"That's what Mum thinks they did," Ron said. "At least she suspects so anyway. I don't think that anyone would have guessed that you gave their winnings to them - I'm just surprised that they took it."

"They weren't going to," Harry said. "But we insisted."

"It isn't like we had any real need for it," I said. "And we figured that they were a good investment because everyone loved what they were doing."

"Everyone but Mum and Dad," Ron muttered.

"Only because they are afraid that it won't be any good," I said. "They'll understand once their a big success."

"Which I'm sure they will be," Harry said. "Just look how everyone reacted to them the other day - they were brilliant and I'm sure that anyone would be happy to buy their products now that they see what they can do with them."

"Anything to get Umbridge off our backs is fine by me," Ron said.

Hermione let out a huff and I knew that she didn't approve of it just like Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. It didn't really matter what they thought though. They would all be proved wrong once they saw what they could do with the shop. Everyone was going to love it because everything they came up with was brilliant. Not to mention that they were loved throughout the school which could only make their business even better.

Before I had a chance to get any more irritated with Hermione, I started to make my way to Hogsmeade. Harry and Ron were going to come, but I told them that I wanted to have a word with the twins alone. The only thing that I was afraid of was that I would hurt their feelings and that wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted to give them some personal advise.

When I walked into their shop after my long walk there, I found that they had already done a pretty good job cleaning it up. They were sitting in the middle of the room playing cards on a broken down table. When they saw me walk in, they couldn't have looked happier.

"I've been wondering when you were going to come around," George said. "I was worried that Hermione had you suffocating under a pile of books."

"No, I got away before she had the chance to start burying me," I smiled as I sat down next to him and gave him a quick kiss.

It took me a minute to say anything to them about what was on my mind. I let them tell me all about their plans with the first shop before I was able to pluck up the courage to say anything to bring them down. I tried to put it as gently as I could, but I could clearly see the confusion in their eyes when I started on them.

"Can I talk to you two about something?" I asked as I looked down at my hands.

"Sure, what is it babe?" George asked as he put his arm around my shoulders.

"It's about this place," I said skeptically. "I've been having my doubts about it."

There was a long pause where they both looked at each other and then back at me like I had just spoken some foreign language that they weren't familiar with.

"What do you mean?" George asked.

"Well, it isn't that I don't think that it was a good idea," I said slowly. "But I'm not sure if it wasn't a bit premature. All I'm saying is that you two haven't even fully established your first shop and now you're going to be opening a branch of it - I"m just not sure if that would be the greatest idea in the world at the moment. I was just thinking that you should have some time and make sure that you'll be able to afford something like this."

I wasn't sure which one of them looked more baffled by what I said - Fred or George. I wasn't sure what to say at this point because I wasn't sure if I had offended them already.

"What changed your mind?" Fred asked. "You were so confidant the other day that it was a good idea and now all of a sudden you think we should back out of it?"

"It's sort of your reasoning behind it," I said. "I understand that it had good intentions, but I'm not sure if they are the best reasons to make a risk like this."

"What do you mean?" George asked.

"Fred told me that one of the main reasons that you two wanted to have a shop here was so that you could be around me more," I said. "As much as I would love for that to happen, I'm not sure that it is a very good idea financially. Just think about it - what happens to this shop during the summer time? No one is going to be around here and business isn't going to do as well."

"We've already thought that through," Fred said. "We understand that business is going to be hard during the summer time and we are prepared for that."

"But is it really worth it?" I asked. "It's a huge risk and I didn't understand that until I had some time to think about that and I'm not sure that you haven't thought about that too. You can't deny that you've had your doubts about this place."

Fred and George looked at each other and then down at the ground. It was true - as much as they didn't want to admit it. Fred proved that the other day when he looked to me for assurance that this wasn't a bad idea.

"So...what do you think we should do?" George asked. "Just throw this place aside - we've already bought it."

"I realize that," I said. "But maybe if you fix the place up you could get a decent deal for it if you sell it. I'm sure that someone else around here would be happy to take it on."

There was another moment of silence where I had to hold my breath. Neither of them really seemed to have that much of an objection to what I had to say which led me to believe that they were agreeing with me for the most part.

"I think she's right," Fred finally sat as he sat back in his chair. "As much as I would love to have a shop here, I'm not sure if it's the greatest idea to start branching out this early in the business."

George nodded in agreement and let out a sigh before looking at me. He looked disappointed and I started to worry if he was angry with me or not. After all, they probably would have gone along with the shop if I hadn't said anything.

"I guess it wasn't our smartest move, huh?" he sighed. "So what do you want to do Fred?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure that I know someone that would be interested in buying the place if we fixed it up," he sighed. "We aren't going to make any money by selling it, but I don't think it would be a good idea to keep this place up without making a profit on it."

"So I guess that's that," George sighed.

We talked a little while longer about some of the things that were going on at Hogwarts so we could change the subject, but there really wasn't much to discuss because of all of the OWLs that we're going on. They were consuming our lives and we didn't really have time for anything else. That was basically how our conversation ended before Fred and George said that it was about time for them to be heading out. They were going to be meeting with someone in Diagon Alley that wanted them to sign some papers and maybe help sponsor their shop, so it was pretty important for them.

I gave Fred a hug goodbye and he stood outside of the door while George said his farewell to me. He looked pretty upset, but it didn't seem like it would be anything he wouldn't recover some.

"I'm sorry that this wouldn't work out," he said while taking my hand in his. "I would have loved to have stuck around here, but you were right...and I guess that we weren't exactly concrete on the idea ourselves."

"Maybe you could try it again some other time," I shrugged. "I was just trying to help..."

"No, I know," he said. "I'm not mad at you, I'm just kind of happy you said something before we got too far into this."

"Yeah, we'll I'm sure that Umbridge is going to be really upset," I said sarcastically.

"I'm sure she'll cry," he laughed. "But seriously, don't hesitate on telling me if she's giving you any trouble. I'll be here within seconds if I hear that she's making your life hell."

"You're too sweet," I smiled. "And I'm sorry that you are going to have to sell the place - I know that you were all excited about it..."

"Well, it was actually more exciting that I would get to see you on a regular basis," he said while looking at the ground.

"I love you George," I said and gave him a kiss. "Just try not to forget about me in the real world."

"I couldn't forget about you if I tried," he smiled.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me gently on the lips. After a moment, he deepened the kiss and ran his hands through my hair and I felt like I lost all sense of hearing. But I was wrong because I heard a sudden BANG on the window next to me and we both jerked apart with our eyes wider than a set of dinner plates.

"Bloody hell Fred!" George shouted.

Fred, not realizing anything was going on, had just slammed his face on the window making the goofiest looking face in attempt to make us laugh. George hit the window sending Fred backwards and both of them started to laugh. I rolled my eyes and laughed before we both joined Fred outside of the shop.

"I guess that I'll see you all later," I sighed as I looked back up at the castle.

"Keep in touch darling," Fred winked as he gave me a hug. "I guess that we'll see you when we come to put the shop up for sale."

"I guess so," I said. "I really am sorry that it didn't work out - it was a clever idea."

"An idea that can be played out once we can afford it," Fred said.

George walked over and kissed me one final time before they finally decided to head back home. They walked back to the edge of Hogsmeade not far from where I was before they gave one final wave and blew a kiss before their was a large _CRACK_ and they were suddenly out of my sight and I suddenly wondered when I would be seeing them again.

All I could think was that they would have stayed here if I hadn't thrown in my two cents, but it was for the best and I knew that everything would be better with time…or would it?

* * *

Some of the final OWL exams seemed to fly by in some sort of blur, but at the same time I felt like they wouldn't ever end. The one that I felt that I did the best on was Potions and I was even shocked when the examiner for my practical exam had high expectations of me just as I introduced myself.

"You're Emily Potter, correct?" the woman asked.

"Er…yes," I smiled award as I sat down. "Why?"

"I see your name in the paper a lot," she shrugged nervously. "And you know…you're one of the Potter twins."

"Right…" I murmured.

"I was also excited to hear that I would get you because your Potions master informed me that you are the very best in his class - the best student that he's ever had," she smiled.

"He said that?" I asked.

"That and more," she said. "I heard that you're planning in taking this subject a lot further and becoming a master yourself."

"I am," I said happily. "But I think it would be a good idea to get through this exam first…"

It wasn't that I wanted to come off as pushy, but the woman made me feel more awkward by the moment with everything she had said. I wasn't sure if what Snape had said would help me with this exam or hurt me because her expectations were set so high, but I felt that I did really well and the potion came out perfectly.

Other than that one, I had to take the Care of Magical Creatures one which I felt I did fairly well on that subject considering it wasn't exactly my favorite. I felt like I performed to the best of my ability and most of us attempted to in hopes that it would help Hagrid keep his job. Maybe it was a bit selfish, but I had more than one reason for not wanting him to get fired - one because I loved Hagrid, but the other was because I was terrified of having to take care of his brother. I had already had several nightmares that involved getting tossed into a tree and crushed by a giant. It just wasn't something that I wanted to do. Besides, I felt like Hagrid did very well in his position because of his love for animals and creatures alike.

We also had a Divination exam and I hardly even bothered to study for that one - I already figured that I would fail that one horribly because of my lack of appreciation for the subject. It wasn't anything personal against either of the teachers that taught me the subject, I just felt like it was extremely pointless to learn and wouldn't help me at all in my future career.

The worst examination by far was our Astronomy one, but it didn't have anything to do with the subject - it was what was going on during the examination itself. It was a very late night when all of us shuffled out to look out of our telescopes to get a look at the planets. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it out of the exam awake when I suddenly heard a loud bang.

I nearly opened my mouth to ask what was going on when I received a very stern look from Professor Marchbanks. I quickly returned to my telescope, but there was something that didn't seem to be right. Once the Professor turned his back, I looked over at Harry and he glanced back at Professor Marchbanks before he quickly pointed across the grounds of the school.

When I looked to where he had pointed, I saw several people crowded around Hagrid's hut off in the distance. Harry gave me a concerned look, but I couldn't understand what was going on - all I knew was that there was no way it was good. From what I could see, Umbridge was among the witches and wizards approaching his hut and that only made me feel worse about the whole idea. That and it made me suddenly want to march down there with them to demand what was going on. Not that it would matter what I did at this point…

"Concentrate on your work children," Professor Marchbanks called out to everyone.

I looked back into my telescope again and quickly sketched a picture of Venus on my map before there was a loud _BANG_ below all of us. Several people let out gasps and I quickly found the source of the noise down below at Hagrid's cabin.

"No!" I heard Hermione say.

"Settle down everyone - your time is running out!" Professor Marchbanks demanded.

It was too late. Everyone's eyes were locked on the scene below and my jaw dropped as I watched Hagrid running along the field below with about six people trailing him as they threw countless jinxes and curses towards him. I would have been more concerned if I actually believe that they were hurting him, but it seemed that every spell that was sent his way was bouncing off of his body. Perhaps it had something to do with him being a giant.

"YOU WON'T TAKE ME LIKE THIS!" Hagrid yelled loudly.

"Be reasonable Hagrid!" another wizard shouted from below.

Everyone taking the exam was transfixed and Professor Marchbanks tried desperately to get us back to our work, but nothing he said could take our eyes off of Hagrid running away from these wizards. I could here more shouts from below, but I couldn't hear at the distance I was from, but I could tell that nothing they were saying was pleasant. All of a sudden another person was added to the mix as they came running from the castle. It only took me a moment to recognize this witch as Professor McGonagall.

"How dare you!" she shouted. "Leave him alone - you call yourselves professionals? How dare you march onto these grounds and attack a teacher!"

Some more sparks were thrown around at one another and McGonagall seemed to be the only one that hadn't raised her wand - she was simply yelling at them in an outrage, but she didn't take action. Umbridge seemed to not be taking too much action other than yelling at the others to capture Hagrid, something that obviously wasn't working.

"GET HIM, WOULD YOU?" she shouted clearly.

Some wizards rose their wands again, but they immediately dropped with their weapons when Hagrid took one swing at them all and sent them to the ground. He only hesitated for a second before he went running off away from the castle and into the darkness. Umbridge was shouting some more, but McGonagall seemed to be at least slightly satisfied that Hagrid hadn't been hurt and had successfully escaped.

"Five minutes everyone!" Professor Marchbanks finally shouted, it seemed that he had been dragged into what was going on below as well - but he still had a job to do after all.

I quickly sketched some final observations before turning in what I had. It wasn't perfect, but it seemed to be good enough. Of course, I'm sure that it had nothing on Hermione's, but I had a strange feeling that no one performed to their full potential with what was going on below.

"Why would they attack him like that?" I demanded. "It's outrageous and completely unprofessional!"

"You know why they did that of course?" Hermione said as we made our way to the Great Hall.

"Because he was close to Dumbledore," Harry sighed. "She's getting rid of everyone that she thinks was close enough to him so they won't threaten her authority! He probably figured that sneaking up to him would prevent him from running away."

"Who do figure is next?" I said in a defeated voice. "You don't suppose that she'll try to out McGonagall, do you?"

"There's no chance," Harry said. "She's too good of a teacher - Umbridge has nothing to fire her for."

"She'll try to find something," I said. "You know her, she's sneaky."

The only person that seemed to be silent during all of this was Ron and he looked like he was ready to throw up all over the ground.

"What's wrong with you?" Harry asked.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he asked. "We're going to have to take care of that bloody brother of his…"

"Oh no…" I said as I put my hands to my temples. "How are we going to do that - you know that Umbridge is going to keep a sharp eye out on us. She knows that we are on Dumbledore's side and she's bound to catch us - "

"Catch you doing what?"

All of us stopped in our tracks and I closed my eyes hoping that this wasn't really happening. The only comforting thought that I had was that it wasn't Umbridge that I had heard.

"It's none of your concern," Harry said quickly.

Snape raised his eyebrows and looked over at me with a questioning look. I gave a weak smile, and told myself that I wouldn't tell him anything. I trusted Snape with everything - but this wasn't my secret to tell and there was no way that I would tell Snape that Hagrid put a giant in the woods and was expecting us to care for it.

"Em - Miss Potter?" Snape asked. "Care to explain?"

"It's best that you don't know honestly," I said slowly.

"And why is that?" he asked.

"Because it doesn't involve you," I said honestly.

"But it obviously involves something that could get you in a lot of trouble," Snape said.

"You have no idea," Ron muttered.

Snape eyed all of us suspiciously, but didn't seem to feel that it was necessary to interrogate us all. After all, there really wouldn't be much point considering none of us were planning on giving him any answers.

"I expect that you did well on your exams?" Snape asked us all. "Well…some of you anyway…"

Harry and Ron scoffed, but Hermione seemed to look absolutely delighted that he would ask how our exams went. She immediately went on about everything that she wasn't certain of on the Potions exam and Snape just stared at her blankly as she went on about her practical exam.

"I'm not sure what I did wrong," she said frantically. "Everything seemed to be right, but the potion didn't seem to smell right and I'm really concerned that I'm going to fail - "

"Hermione, do us all a favor and calm down," I laughed. "You're the brightest person in our year - you're going to do fine."

"But I'm sure that _you_ didn't have any problems on your exam!" Hermione said in a panic.

"Well…I forgot the date for a minute…" I murmured.

Snape's lip curled up into a short lived smile when he looked at the horrified expression on Hermione's face. She was my best friend, but I knew that it bothered her more than anything that she wasn't the best in one of her classes and I seriously believed that Snape took delight in giving me a higher grade.

"Well, I suppose that we better be off," I said to Snape. "I need to look over some of my History of Magic notes before the exam. I'm pretty sure that it's going to be my worst one next to Divination."

"I can't say I ever cared for that class myself," Snape murmured. "It wasn't very…entertaining."

"And you think that Potions is - ?" Harry started.

I elbowed him just as Snape sent a glare his way and I let out a nervous laugh before I waved and began to drag Harry away from the area.

"Good luck," Snape said dully as we exited the corridor.

Ron laughed as he caught up with us and Hermione seemed to still be thinking through all of the potential mistakes that she could have made with her exams, but we all sort of ignored her. There was no reasoning with her around the time of the exams. She was more insane than any of us because she was so determined to do better.

* * *

Our final exam finally came around and I didn't think I could be any more relieved to get this one out of the way. History of Magic was by far my worst subject because it was the one that I could care less about and normally slept through. The only hope that I had was to briefly skim through the notes I had copied from Hermione before we were brought into the room.

"I'm going to fail," Neville said as we walked to the Great Hall.

"We'll fail together," I said as I put my arm through his. "If we're going to fail, we might as well fail with pride."

"All I can do to help myself at this point is remind myself that it's the last OWL," Neville said nervously. "I'm just afraid that Gran will yell at me if I fail."

"She'll forgive you eventually," I said. "Besides, you'll do better than me anyway. And who knows, maybe she'll see that Outstanding for Herbology and she'll completely forget about this one."

"You don't know that I got an Outstanding," Neville said with his face going pink.

"Don't be bashful," I said. "You know that you did great on it."

When we finally got into the Great Hall, the nervousness set in. I took my seat in front of Harry and we gave each other a nervous smile before all of the tests were handed out. I let out a sigh before I picked up my quill and read through the first question. I suddenly began to regret sleeping through nearly every class when I realized how little I knew.

The occasional question I knew because of Hermione's quick review with my, but I found myself wondering if I had even taken the class when I saw some of the other questions. There was an entire war that I seemed to by unaware of and when I finished all of the questions that I knew, I set my quill down and looked at the time. We still had a fair bit of time left, so I decided that I would rest my mind before I looked through some of the questions that I wasn't sure of.

I rubbed my temples and looked around at all of the other students that seemed to be buried in the exam. Some of them looked confused like I did, but people like Hermione seemed to be breezing through the questions like it was a test on their ABC's. I just wish that I had studied the subject more.

I picked up my quill again and filled in some more questions with answers that I wasn't fully sure of, but they seemed vaguely familiar, so I figured that it was my best shot. That was when I sudden daze seemed to wash over me and the room vanished like it was some sort of dream.

All at once, I began to recognize my surroundings. I was standing in front of the door that led to the Department of Mysteries. I looked around to see if anyone else was there with me before I quickly barreled through the door so I could look around at what was inside. There was the circular room that I had only seen once before and I walked across it like it was as familiar as my dormitory. I went through the second door across from me.

There I was in an enormous room that was filled with various different shelves that seemed to all hold the same thing. On every shelf there were several different spheres of all shapes and sizes and I suddenly wondered what their purpose was. It must have been really important if they had been hidden in here…but what could they possibly be? I'd never seen anything like them…

Without any sort of guidance of wonder, I walked quickly along the aisles of shelves and went directly towards a black shape that was moving amongst the shelves. Something about the thing frightened me because it seemed to not want to be in the room of spheres and wiggled around in what looked to be an attempt at escape.

I finally got as close as I could to the shape on the floor and I looked to the shelf on my left and felt some sort of odd desire to grab the sphere that laid there. It only took me a moment to see the small, golden plaque underneath it that read "ninety-seven." Why were they numbered? What was their significance? Why did I go to this one out of all of the spheres in this room?

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when I heard an all to familiar cold voice erupt from myself. The sound of the voice sent a chill down my spine and I suddenly got the urge to leave, but something was holding me back. It was the shape on the ground and it was then that I suddenly realized that it was a man.

"Take it for me - give it to me now," the cold voice came from me. "Take it now - I know that you can!"

The man on the floor didn't move and not a sound came from him. He just laid there like a helpless animal that refused to listen to anyone.

"Crucio!" the cold voice shouted.

The body on the floor suddenly began to let out a scream as it twisted and turned in the most unnatural way. He finally fell backward onto the ground again and hid his face when the curse was taken off of him.

"I'm not a patient man," the cold-man snarled. "Lord Voldemort always gets what he wants."

"I'd rather die than listen to you," Sirius spat in his face.

"By the time I'm finished with you, you'll wish that you were dead," Voldemory snarled. "But not before you give me I came here for. Trust me, this could last for a long time - there's no one here to stop me."

Sirius sat in front of him like a helpless child as blood dripped from his face. From the look on his face, anyone could tell that he would do everything in his power to deny Voldemort whatever he was asking.

"Fine, have it your way!" Voldemort yelled. "_Crucio!_"

Sirius screamed in agony as his body began to fold unnaturally on the floor. Voldemort let a cruel, sick laugh escape from him as his victim screamed. I wanted to help him, but there wasn't anything that I could do and I suddenly found myself screaming and sobbing right along with the godfather that I so dearly loved. When I noticed that his screams seemed to have left my ears, I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the floor in the Great Hall.

Everyone's eyes were turned in my direction as I cried for the godfather that I couldn't save.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! The next chapter should be up around Friday or Saturday! So what do you all think of Fred and George selling the shop that they just bought? Do you think that Emily was being wise in telling them to do so? I'm not sure if the message was shown clearly, but I wanted it to be clear that George wasn't going to give up on seeing Emily and that she didn't want to be selfish and put them in debt just so that they wouldn't be apart for too long. Hope that you got that (and I guess if you didn't then you do now).**

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	45. Confusion

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 45**

Once I stopped screaming, I found that I was not alone. It only took me a moment to remember that I was in the Great Hall where everyone had been peacefully taking their OWLs moments before, but now they were all staring towards me. When I looked behind me, I saw that I was not the only one that was sitting on the floor with a horrified expression on my face, but I was joined by Harry who looked both startled and confused.

"Did you see that?" Harry mouthed.

I could only bring myself to nod because I felt like my throat had closed up and I was unable to speak. When I turned back around, I saw several of the examiners racing over to us and trying to give off calming messages to the others in hopes that they would get back to their work, but it didn't seem to be working out very well for them because everyone seemed to be focused on Harry and me as we sat helplessly on the floor.

"Everything's fine children," one of the old men said. "Just get back to work..."

We both quickly stood up at once in a panic because we weren't sure what to do. Everyone continued to stare at us as the men grabbed us by the arm and pulled us from the area. Once we were out of the room and the door was closed behind them, they started to talk.

"I can take them up to the hospital wing," the shorter man said. "You all should stay here and help monitor the test - I'm sure that they'll need all the help they can get after that."

"We need to speak with Dumbledore," Harry said frantically.

"Dumbledore is nowhere to be found boy," the man said. "Stop talking nonsense."

Harry and I looked at each other as we walked in front of the man. We didn't need to speak to know what the other was thinking - we needed to speak to someone from the Order, but who? Dumbledore was the first person that would come to mind, but there was no chance that we could speak to him now that he's vanished. We needed to speak to someone that was from the Order and the first person that I thought of was McGonagall. All we needed to do was find out where she was.

When we stepped into the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey was working on a first year that seemed to have boils popping up all over her skin. When she saw the three of us coming in, her eyebrow raised and she walked over to us after handing over a vial of medicine to the other girl.

"What seems to be the problem?" she said while eyeing us suspiciously.

"These two collapsed during the exam," the man explained. "We figured that stress was the problem."

"No, it really isn't," I said irritably. "I couldn't care less about that test. Now, if you don't mind, we have places to go and people to see - "

"You aren't going anywhere," the man said.

"You don't understand!" Harry said. "We need to speak to Professor McGonagall right now!"

"Professor McGonagall?" Madam Pomfrey asked. "What for?"

"That isn't important," I said as I began to walk out of the room.

Harry walked alongside me, but we were stopped when Madam Pomfrey addressed us again. We both looked back at her and she looked almost sympathetic.

"I'm sorry, but she isn't here," she said. "She had to go to St. Mungo's - she was injured when Hagrid was being taken."

Harry and I looked at one another and the color drained from our faces. First Dumbledore left and now McGonagall - we had no chance of getting in touch with anyone now that we didn't have any members of the Order left in the building.

"What are we going to do?" I asked Harry.

"There's only one thing that we can do," he said to me before turning to the confused looking adults. "Thank you for your help, but I think we're better now."

They nodded and just watched us as we walked out of the room and dashed through the corridors of the school. To be honest, I wasn't really sure where we were going or why they hadn't tried to stop us when we left. Perhaps it had to do with them having no idea what was going on. Everyone thinks that we're crazy, so maybe that was what they had in mind when they let us leave.

"We have to go to the Department of Mysteries," Harry said.

"We can't just go walking up into the Department - " I started shakily.

"Then what do you want us to do?" he asked in a raised voice. "Just let him get murdered like our parents - no, I'm not going to just sit back and watch when I know I can stop it!"

"That's not what I'm saying!" I said angrily. "I'm saying that we don't even know how to get there!"

"We've had those dreams, right?" he said. "They've led us there before - maybe we could figure it out that way."

"We need to speak to someone first," I said. "Let Ron and Hermione know what's going on before we leave. Someone needs to know what's going on in case we're all killed and we could have them try to contact the Order as we take off - they could meet us there or something."

"Fine," he said. "Let's go now - they should be getting out of the Great Hall right about now."

We both took off down some more stairs towards the Great Hall. Looking up at a clock that was placed nearby, I knew that Harry was right and the test was nearly over which meant that everyone that we would be able to find Ron quickly. Before we even made it to the right floor, we turned quickly and found ourselves only yards away from Ron and Hermione who looked like they were headed somewhere.

"There they are!" I heard Hermione say.

They rushed over to us and opened their mouth to say something just as we grabbed onto their arms and practically dragged them off to the side where we couldn't be overheard.

"We need you to contact the Order," I said without any introduction. "Tell them to go to the Department of Mysteries and that we are already going there."

Ron and Hermione seemed speechless and more confused than I had seen them in a long time. They looked at each other and back to us as though we had just lost it.

"Why are you going to the Department of Mysteries?" Ron finally asked.

"Sirius is in trouble - " I started.

" - we saw it in a vision during the exam, that's why we fainted - " Harry said.

" - so we are going to break into the Ministry of Magic to find Sirius - " I said.

" - we might not have much more time - " Harry said.

" - and we're only wasting more right now," I said.

"What is Sirius doing in the Ministry?" Hermione asked.

"We saw Sirius in the Department of Mysteries - " Harry started.

" - and Voldemort has him," I said. "We don't even know if he's still alive right now."

"You're supposed to be blocking him - " Hermione started.

"We know!" we shouted at once.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Neville appear next to us looking like he was in some sort of panic.

"Are you two okay, I saw what happened in the Great Hall - wait, what's going on?" he asked when he got a good look at all of us.

Harry and I quickly explained what was going on and that we needed as many people as we could to find members of the Order so we could stop Voldemort.

"You saw your godfather through You-Know-Who's mind?" Neville said slowly.

"Yes, and we need you to - " I started.

"How do you know that this isn't some sort of trap?" Neville asked looking concerned. "What if You-Know-Who found out about your connection with him and is using it against you?"

"How could he possibly know about this?" I asked irritably. "Besides, I would never risk this - if Sirius is in trouble there is no way that I am just going to let Voldemort murder him because of some sort of unnecessary doubt."

"I just want you to be careful," Neville said defensively. "You know that I'll help you figure all of this out, but I just want to make sure that you don't get hurt. Both of us know that getting involved with You-Know-Who is dangerous and I don't want us to have the same fate as our parents did."

Even though I knew that his intentions were good, I knew that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I wasn't going to do everything I could to help Sirius - I didn't care if Voldemort was going to try to stop me or not.

"Our parents stood up for what they believed in," I said softly. "And if I die because of the same reason, then so be it. As long as Sirius and everyone else is okay then I wouldn't mind giving up my life."

Neville closed his eyes and looked like he was in pain, but nodded his head in agreement. He looked around at Ron and Hermione who were standing next to him and gave a weak smile.

"I'll be there with you," Neville said. "Until the very end. Just find out what is going on with Sirius - is there any way that you could contact him first to make sure that this isn't a trap?"

All of us looked around at one another and then Harry's eyes brightened up. It only took me a moment to realize what he was thinking and I know that it was the only way for this to work.

"Umbridge's office," he whispered.

No one said a word, but I knew that they were all thinking about how risky it was to go into her office. The only thing I could think of was the last time that this idea had come up. What if Umbridge had set up traps now that she knew people were trying to get into her office to terrorize her? But there was only one chance now and we couldn't pass it up.

"We're going to need a distraction," I said.

"We can do that," Neville said quickly. "I'm not sure how long we can keep her away from you, but we can try."

"What can we do?" Ron asked.

"I don't know, you're a Weasley - think of something," I said.

"Fred and George did leave behind some things around the castle," Ron said. "They told me before they left they used to always hide explosive fireworks and dung bombs inside of knights for emergency usage."

"Of course they did," Hermione shook her head in disapproval.

"Well, it's definitely an emergency now," Harry said.

"Okay, we'll try to give you five minutes up there once we gather the materials," Neville said.

I nodded and I suddenly stepped over and gave him a quick hug. No one could ask for a better friend than Neville and I knew that he would stick to his word. As much as I wanted to tell him that this wasn't his battle, I knew that there wasn't any use in trying to get him out of it. If the roles were reversed, I knew that I wouldn't give up on him because that's what friends do for each other. They're there whenever they are needed and won't give up on the other no matter what the cause.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"Get moving," he said. "I'm not sure how long we can keep her off - just try to hurry up."

I nodded and glanced around at the others before I quickly raced towards Umbridge's office with Harry. Neville was right - we didn't have much time and we needed to use every second that we could to contact Sirius.

We raced up towards her office and it seemed like an entire lifetime had passed when we entered the corridor that led to her office. We both stepped off to stand behind a statue that was located in an area just off of the hallway to wait for the signal to go off and her to leave her office.

Within a few minutes, just when I was starting to get nervous that nothing would happen, I heard a sudden _BANG_ erupt from downstairs followed by several other _BOOM_s and screams from people below. We pressed ourselves up against the wall in preparation for our new Headmistress to see what was going on.

A door flew open near us and I watched from behind the statue as Umbridge went running from her room. I have no idea what they did below or how they managed to do it so fast, but it was working nonetheless. We only hesitated for a moment longer to make sure that she was out of the area before we went running again.

We stopped quickly in our tracks when we saw that we weren't the only ones in the corridor - there was Ginny.

"Ron told me what was going on - I'll keep watch," she said. "If you hear an explosion happen near the door, then you need to get out."

We nodded in a quick understanding before we pushed through the door of her office and ran towards the fireplace. I ignored the hisses and snarls of the portraits of cats that surrounded me as I looked around for the Floo Powder. Before I caught a glimpse of it, Harry had already found it and had thrown it into the fireplace. We both knelt down and Harry shouted Sirius's address before we shoved our heads through the fire.

It felt like my head was spinning around in a vortex. All around me I could hear voices of people that I would never know and I could see several fireplaces appearing and disappearing. Just when I thought that I was going to be caught in this strange place forever, I suddenly found myself looking into a familiar room.

It took me a moment to realize that I was in Sirius's house, but as soon as I did, I looked to my right and found Harry's head floating in the fire next to me.

"Sirius!" Harry shouted.

That's when I suddenly forgot about how strange the situation was and remembered why we had done this in the first place. We needed to find Sirius and it worried me that he wasn't in sight.

"Sirius - we need to talk to you!" I shouted.

I heard footsteps coming towards us, but they seemed light and quick which made me believe that it wasn't him because I knew that he didn't exactly have the lightest footsteps. After a moment someone appeared, but it wasn't the someone that I expected. It was Kreacher.

"Kreacher - you need to get Sirius," Harry said quickly. "This is urgent!"

"Kreacher should have known that the filthy half-bloods would visit the Master," he spoke to himself. "Kreacher knew that it was only a matter of time."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Is there something wrong - where is he?"

"The filthy twins expect Kreacher to do everything," he mumbled. "Kreacher was talking to his Mistress, but that's not important to the nasty - "

"KREACHER!" I shouted. "Where is Sirius - we don't have time for this!"

Harry and I watched as Kreacher let out some sort of demented laugh as he walked away from the fireplace. Something about him seemed different than usual - he wasn't normally this chatty or happy about anything.

"Kreacher doesn't think that Master will return tonight," he said loud enough for us to hear. "Master has gone to the Department of Mysteries and now my Mistress will have her home to herself again."

He let out another cruel laugh before walking out of view. The blood in my veins ran cold and I wasn't sure if I wanted to scream or cry, but I didn't have time to do either because I suddenly felt a jerk on the back of my neck and I flew backwards and hit my head on something hard.

"What do you think you're doing?" a dark voice said to me.

I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the floor in a pink room. When I looked up, I found a very angry woman staring down at me. Once my head stopped throbbing, I realized what had just happened and my eyes widened in fear.

Harry jumped up to his feet quickly and I joined in and backed into a wall that was behind me. I reached for the wand in my pocket and found that it was missing.

"Don't even think about it," Umbridge snarled as she held up a pair of wands in her hand.

The door to the room burst open and I saw a pair of burly Slytherin boys barging into the room, but they weren't alone. One of them was dragging Ginny and the other had Neville by the scruff of his neck. They both looked at us with the most apologetic expression and I suddenly felt guilty for having them involved.

"Let them go," I demanded.

"You are in no place to make orders," Umbridge said. "And I suggest you keep your mouth shut unless I request you do otherwise, do you understand?"

For the first time in a while, I actually did as I was told. To be honest, I wasn't sure what there was to be said - she had caught us in the act of breaking into her office and there wasn't any denying it. The only thing that we had on our side was that she didn't know who we were talking to.

She grabbed us both by the collar of our shirts and shoved us into a couple of chairs that sat nearby. I went to jump up again, but she had already waved her wand. I wasn't sure what spell she put on me, but I couldn't move from my chair and it felt as though ropes were keeping me seated. I found that I was still able to move my head around when I turned to see some more people coming into the room.

"We found these shooting off dung bombs downstairs," Draco said. "I assume that they're with this lot."

He dragged in Luna and was followed closely by a couple of other members of the Inquisitorial Squad that were dragging in Ron and Hermione. Each one of them had their wand taken from them which made all of us defenseless.

Once everyone was in the room and the door was closed, Umbridge walked back over to us and narrowed her eyes.

"You were trying to reach Dumbledore, weren't you?" she said as she pointed her wand at Harry's face.

"How could we do that?" I asked angrily. "No one knows where he is - "

"Don't lie to me!" she shrieked. "You know where he is and I demand answers - "

The door to the room opened again, interrupting her in what I assumed was going to be a threat. My stomach nearly did a leap when I saw that it was Snape at the door and I suddenly felt some sort of hope that we were going to get out of this and get to Sirius before it was too late.

"Ah, Severus," Umbridge said. "Just the person that I needed - I'm going to need some more Veritaserum."

Snape looked like he was going to say something, but glanced around the room and saw all of us tied up and raised an eyebrow. I wanted to tell him what was going on, but there was no way to do that without Umbridge hearing it.

"I'm afraid that we don't have anymore," Snape said sounding uninterested. "May I ask what for?"

"Can't you make some more?" she demanded while ignoring his latter question.

"Not at the moment," he said. "Veritaserum can't be made that quickly - it takes time."

Umbridge's face suddenly grew very red and I half expected her to punch Snape in the face, but she suddenly calmed herself and put on a very unpleasant looking smile.

"Very well," she said slowly. "Since you do not wish to follow orders, you are on probation."

"What?" I said suddenly. "Just because you can't get what you want from us doesn't mean that - "

Her hand moved so quickly that I nearly missed it as it flew across my face. A loud echo went across the room and everyone went silent as the stinging sensation went across my cheek.

"How many times do I have to tell you to shut your mouth you stupid girl!" Umbridge shouted.

When I finally swallowed my pride and looked up at everyone around me - all of them had their jaws dropped including the Slytherins that were there. When I finally looked around at Snape, I saw that he looked like he was about a half a second from leaping across the room to shove a knife through Umbridge's skull, but was resisting the urge.

"It's about time that you receive some discipline," she said as she got inches from my face. "Don't think that you are above me because of your past. I don't care that your parents were careless enough to step in front of You-Know-Who and get themselves blown up - "

Without even considering what I was doing because of the sudden fury that had erupted through me, I got every ounce of saliva that was in my mouth and spat it directly into her face. She stepped back quickly and let out a small gasp before she violently wiped it off her face.

"How _dare_ you!" she shouted.

She stepped over to me and quickly raised her hand again. I braced myself for another smack in the face, but was shocked when nothing came my way. I looked back up at my Headmistress and found that the arm that was coming at me was being restrained my Potions professor.

"That is _enough_," Snape said through his teeth. "You will not lay another hand on her."

Umbridge stepped out of his hold and Snape walked in front of us to block us from her rage. If a pin was dropped in the room, I'm sure at that moment that anyone could hear it. Snape and Umbridge stared at one another with expressions that could kill a person.

"I've had enough of this," Umbridge said in a dark tone. "Ever since I've stepped into this building, you've done nothing but defend these defiant little rodents and I'm not putting up with it any longer. Get off of these grounds - you are _fired_."

Snape didn't seem alarmed or the least bit surprised by this. He simply glanced around the room one more time and gave us a simple nod before beginning to walk out of the room. Just before he left, I felt the need to cry out to ask him to stay, but Harry spoke out before anyone else could.

"Snape!" Harry called.

Snape turned around and raised an eyebrow at my brother who seemed to be struggling to find the words that he needed to tell him. If this was our chance to get the Order's help then we had to take it.

"He's got Padfoot," Harry said suddenly. "He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden."

Snape's eyes flickered over to Umbridge for a moment, but he gave no sign at all that he understood the message.

"What are you talking about?" Umbridge demanded. "Snape - what does he mean?"

"I have no idea," Snape shrugged. "Not that it would matter if I did. You hold no authority over me any longer Dolores. I would like to have said that it's been a pleasure working with you, but it hasn't."

He bowed and gave a wicked smile before he walked out of sight leaving us to deal with Umbridge. I wasn't sure if he understood what Harry had told him, but I could only hope that he was going to convey the message now.

Umbridge jerked her head back to us and began to give us her usual nasty smile that meant something bad was going to happen. She wasn't getting her way and I know that she didn't like it.

"Fine," she said simply. "I've tried to be nice, but that doesn't seem to be working now, does it?"

If that was her being nice, then I had serious concerns for what was going to come our way. However, I found it slightly difficult to find her intimidating in pink room filled with paintings of cats. I don't know, maybe it was just me.

"I think that the Cruciatus Curse will help us get some answers," she said cruelly.

Everyone around us looked shocked, including the Slytherins that were supposed to be on her side. Draco, who was still holding back Luna, looked as though his jaw was going to detach itself from the rest of his skull. To think that he looked pale before…

"There is no way in hell - " Neville started.

"That's illegal!" Hermione shouted. "You cannot do that - the Minister would never allow it."

"Cornelius isn't here now, is he?" Umbridge snapped back. "And you've left me with no alternative."

She pointed her wand at Harry and then a sickening smirk went across her face and she took one quick step over to me and pulled my hair back and put her wand up to my throat. I let out a surprised gasp and Harry's eyes widened.

"Let's see how long it'll take for you to give me some answers, shall we?" she asked Harry. "The more you refuse, the worse it is for your sister."

I closed my eyes in defeat. Harry wasn't going to let her do this to me and he was going to give her the answers because I knew that if I were put in the same position as him I wouldn't want him to get hurt. It was one thing if they tortured me for information and Harry had no part of it, but this was a new low even for Umbridge. She knew that she had us this time.

She began to say something else, but was stopped by someone standing behind me. If I wasn't being held in a hostage sort of situation, I would have had to have looked at him to make sure that it was actually him who said it. I noticed that Umbridge's grip on my head lessened as Draco Malfoy spoke up.

"I'm not sure that this is a good idea," Draco said.

"What are you talking about Mister Malfoy?" Umbridge asked.

"It's just that…it's illegal," he said. "And I'm sure that there is another way that we could reason with them - "

"If you have a problem with my tactics, you can leave," she said abruptly. "There is no reasoning with these two - believe me, I've tried."

Draco didn't say anything else and I struggled against Umbridge's hold on me and the spell that held me on the chair. She let out a cruel laugh before turning back to Harry.

"I don't want to do this Mister Potter," Umbridge said in a sickly sweet voice. "But you've forced me to. All you have to do is give me the information that I'm asking for and I'll let your sister go."

"Don't do it Harry," I said.

She pulled harder on my head and Harry looked from me to Umbridge in a sort of panic before Umbridge rose her wand again. I braced myself as she opened her mouth and began to utter the spell.

"Cruci-" she started.

"NO!" Neville shouted. "Can't you just tell her already!"

Everyone in the room stopped and looked back at Neville. Even Umbridge let go of me and walked over to Neville with a questioning look on her face.

"Tell me what exactly?" she asked.

Neville looked around at all of us and I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't even sure what he was going to say. That's when Hermione joined in.

"They were trying to speak to Dumbledore," Hermione said while shaking. "But we couldn't find where he was…"

Everyone in the room looked shocked. What was Hermione trying to do? If this was her way of getting us out of trouble then it wasn't working. All this was doing was adding fuel to the fire.

"And what did you need to contact him for?" she demanded.

Hermione and Neville looked at each other and then back at Umbridge. They were the worst liars of the group and now they were being put on the spot where they had to make up some sort of story. Something told me that this wasn't going to work out in our favor.

"To tell him that it's ready," Neville said nervously.

"That what is ready?" Umbridge asked quickly.

"His…secret weapon," Hermione said slowly.

"A weapon?" Umbridge demanded. "What sort of weapon are you talking about - is this some sort of resistance against the Ministry?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "We've been creating it under Dumbledore's orders."

"And we wanted to tell him that it's ready," Neville said a little too quickly. "Because we don't know how he wants us to use it."

"Is that so?" Umbridge asked. "Where is this weapon then - is it nearby?"

"Yes," Hermione said nervously.

"Then you are to show this weapon to me," she demanded. "I want all four of you to lead me to it so I can see it for myself."

"What about us?" Draco asked suddenly. "Should we come along to make sure that - "

"I can manage them myself Mister Malfoy," she said coldly. "Now let's go."

All four of us were released from the people that were holding us, or in my case and Harry's the spell that was holding us, and we began to walk out of the room. I couldn't tell who was more confused about the situation - us or the people that made up the story in the first place.

The only thing that I could hope for was that Hermione and Neville had a plan.

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! Sorry that this isn't up when I said it was going to be. I've been having these crazy headaches that won't go away - I'm doing good today though! I hope that you like where this chapter is going and if you have any suggestions feel free to leave them in a comment! The next chapter should be up sometime between Thursday and Friday.**

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	46. The Reason the Forest is Forbidden

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. **

**Chapter 46**

We all followed behind Hermione and Neville as we stepped out of the castle and onto the grounds outside. They seemed to know where they were going, but the rest of us where left in confusion. Dumbledore didn't have a weapon set up for us like they had told Umbridge, so it was really hard to say what they were going show her.

I glanced back at Umbridge who was walking behind all of us and she narrowed her eyes and gripped onto the wand she had in her hand. When I turned my head forward again, I started to look around the area to see what Hermione and Neville could have possibly planned to show her.

"It's in Hagrid's house, isn't it?" Umbridge snarled suddenly. "I should have known that the half-bred oaf was plotting against me, I - "

"It's not there," Hermione snapped. "We wouldn't leave it with him."

"He wasn't involved with this," Neville said. "He's too accident prone - he might have accidentally set it off."

It took some control to not let out a snort. Neville was one of the most accident prone people that I knew - it just seemed a bit ironic that he would accuse someone else like that. Not that it was a bad thing, I guess that he just didn't want to get Hagrid in any more trouble than he already was in.

"You're right, his kind can't be trusted with anything," Umbridge scoffed.

If it wasn't for me being completely defenseless I probably would have scoffed at her. It's incredible that she can think of herself as a higher power now that she has hit an all time low as she holds four children hostage as we set off towards a nonexistent weapon of Dumbledore's. If only she realized how idiotic she looked right now...

Just as we stepped nearer to the Forbidden Forest, Umbridge came to a complete and abrupt stop behind us. We all stopped not too far away from her with a questioning look.

"It's not in there, is it?" she asked.

"Of course it is," Hermione said.

"Dumbledore wouldn't want us to have it somewhere obvious," Neville said. "I would have thought you would have assumed that Professor."

"Fine," she snapped irritably. "But you all will take the lead."

I turned back around and rolled my eyes as we crossed through the brush that led into the Forbidden Forest. It was only moments later that I remembered why people didn't like this place - the unknown noises from the dark depths tends to creep people out.

Because of the roots, trees, and other obstacles, we finally managed to put some sort of distance from Umbridge and I used it to my advantage while we had it.

"Where are we going," I asked Neville as he tripped over another root that poked through the ground.

"I have no idea," he whispered frantically back to me. "I just figured that Hermione had a plan."

"And I do," Hermione whispered to us. "I just hope that it works - "

"How far in is it?" Umbridge demanded loudly.

"Not too much further!" Hermione yelled loudly back to her. "We wanted to make sure it was well hidden!"

"Hermione, you shouldn't be yelling so loudly - " Harry started.

"I want us to be heard," she said under her breath.

"Are you mad - don't you know what's in this forest?" I said.

"Are you sure that you know where you're going?" Umbridge called up to us.

"Of course we do!" Hermione yelled. "I've been through here loads of times before! I just - "

It was lucky that I stumbled over a stump on the ground because at that moment I saw an arrow fly directly over my head where I has been a moment before.

"What was that?" Umbridge asked as she scrambled up to us. "Was that an arrow?"

Suddenly I began to hear loud galloping noises and I suddenly understood what Hermione was trying to do. Fear flooded my veins when I realized that we might not get out of this one ourselves - why would Hermione even consider doing this?

Within moments we found ourselves surrounded by a large group of centaurs - none of them looking as friendly as Firenze and all of them had some sort of weapon in their hands.

"Who are you?" the largest centaur asked boldly.

Each one of us found ourselves speechless as we stared up at the centaurs. Neville, whose eyes had widened tremendously, slowly stepped over to where he became a barrier between the centaurs and me.

"I asked who are you?" the centaur repeated angrily.

"I am Dolores Umbridge," our Headmistress spoke up suddenly and nervously. "Senior Undersecretary to the Minster of Magic and Headmistress of Hogwarts."

With this, all of the centaurs shifted around uncomfortably and many of them looked both angry and disgusted. Although a lot of people seemed to have this reaction with her, myself included, I didn't quite understand what they had become so angry for.

"You work for the Ministry?" one centaur asked. "What business do you have in our Forest then?"

"Your forest?" Umbridge scoffed suddenly. "This is not your forest, may I remind you centuar. You are only permitted to live in this area because the Ministry allows it."

"Is that so?" the one asked her again with a cruel smile forming on his face.

Suddenly two of them pulled out another two arrows and shot them both directly above Umbridge and she let out a yelp while the rest of us stood still with fear.

"How dare you attack me you filthy half-breed!" she shouted once she stood up again. "Law Fifteen B states clearly that "any attack by a magical creature who is deemed to have near-human intelligence is considered to be - "

"What did you just say human?" the centuar recoiled. "Near-human intelligence?"

"Oh no…" I said under my breath.

"How dare you insult us!" another centuar spat angrily. "Our intelligence far outweighs any that you have!"

"Don't compare yourself to humans you filthy animal!" Umbridge said in disgust. "As Undersecretary of the Minister himself, I hereby decree - "

Another arrow was suddenly shot right at her feet and she looked up at the centaur that shot it like he had just walked right up to her and smacked her in the face. I had seen her get angry more times than normal, but it had never been quite like this. Perhaps it had something to do with them not being fully human - it was no secret that Umbridge hated anything that was not fully human and she was showing that now more than ever.

"How dare you shoot that at me!" she shouted and then pulled her wand out and pointed it directly at one of the centaurs. "Incarcerous!"

Ropes flew out of her wand and sent the centaur straight to the ground struggling and yelling as they trapped him. This was the final straw for the others as they immediately let out cries of rage and charged right at Umbridge. I didn't see exactly what happened after that because Neville suddenly pulled me backward and brought me behind a large tree so that we wouldn't get trampled. Only moments later we were joined by Harry and Hermione.

All I could hear was Umbridge's cry of protest and horror as she was dragged off into the forest. Neville, who was looking around the tree, had a grimace on his face and then he suddenly looked terrified again. That's when I saw the centaurs walking around the tree to look at all of us.

"And what about these?" the first one asked.

"They are young Magorian," the other one said.

"Aren't they the ones that brought her here Ronan?" Margorian asked. "That's what appeared to be happening when we found them."

"We only brought her here because we thought you could help us - " Hermione started.

"Hermione - no," I said quickly.

"You thought that we could just do your dirty work for you," Margorian snarled. "It seems as though they aren't so young at all. They already seem to be as unintelligent as the people that raise them."

They began to approach us all at once. We started to back up, but found ourselves surrounded and I suddenly lost all hope in this cause. We were going to be taken away just like Umbridge and who knows where that was going to be. All hope of helping Sirius suddenly faded away as I came to the realization that we weren't even going to be able to get out of the situation that we were in. I just hoped that he wouldn't think that we gave up on him…

Suddenly all of our hearts nearly jumped into our chests when we heard the smashing of trees not far from where we were standing. Only seconds later we found out what was creating the noise and I found myself backing away quickly at the sight of someone that I had only heard the name of. He was taller than any man that I had ever seen before in my life and he had the look of one of those cavemen that Dudley used to watch on the television, only significantly taller than any of them.

"WHERE'S HAGGER?" the giant demanded.

"Get out of here giant," the centaur said angrily. "You have no business around these parts."

"HERMY - WHERE'S HAGGER?" Grawp demanded again.

My eyes shot over to Hermione who didn't look at all perplexed that this giant was speaking to her. Of course, it wasn't like he had actually used her name correctly, but she was the only one in the area that I would have guessed could be Hermy.

"What is that thing?" Neville whispered as we slowly inched away from Grawp.

"I believe that's it's Hagrid's brother," I said shakily.

"Why is Hagrid's brother in the Forbidden Forest?" he asked quickly as he stumbled over a rock that was behind him.

"Beats the hell out of me," I said.

"HAGGER!" Grawp shouted again.

"Hagrid isn't here right now Grawp," Hermione said desperately as the centaurs began to surround the enormous man.

It took a moment to comprehend what she was saying, but Grawp seemed to understand what Hermione was saying to him. He suddenly looked around at all of the centaurs and let out an enormous yell that could have scared the life out of any normal person and then he proceeded to swing his arms around and beat the trees into the ground. All of the centaurs began to yell in protest and they pulled out their weapons and began to attack Grawp who didn't even seem to notice that his blood was flying everywhere.

"I think we should - " I started quickly.

"RUN!" Harry yelled.

Neville grabbed onto my hand and we both quickly sprinted through the forest and attempted to jump through all of the brush on the ground as fast as we could so we could put as much distance between ourselves and what was going on behind us in the forest.

"Well wasn't that just _brilliant!_" Harry yelled as we got closer to the grounds of Hogwarts. "What were you two doing - trying to get us killed!"

"It wasn't me!" Neville shouted back at him. "I didn't want to go into that bloody forest in the first place!"

"I was just trying to get rid of her!" Hermione said as we raced around Hagrid's hut. "And it worked - didn't it?"

"Barely!" I said. "We were nearly killed!"

"I'm sorry okay!" Hermione shouted. "I didn't know what else to do - besides, you all could have helped me out! Especially you Neville - I thought that you had something!"

"You honestly thought that _I_ had something planned!" Neville shouted back.

"Enough!" Harry shouted as he stopped in his tracks. "All of you - this is getting ridiculous! We're supposed to be finding Sirius, has everyone else forgotten that? We need to get to London _right now_!"

"We need to go up to the castle first," I said.

"What are you talking about - we've already used up enough time," Harry said angrily.

"I realize that, but we don't have any wands," I said. "Unless you have some other way to get him out that doesn't involve getting murdered as soon as we step through the door!"

Harry glared at me, but he knew that I was right. We couldn't just prance into the Ministry of Magic to fight off Death Eaters and Voldemort without any sort of weapon - it would be idiotic. As we approached the door to the castle, Neville brought up an excellent point that I hadn't thought of yet.

"How exactly do you all plan on getting to London?" he asked.

Harry and I looked at each other with a dumbfounded expression. We just really aren't thinking through things today - how would we get there?

"Funny, I was just about to ask the same thing."

Out of the front door to the castle came Ron, Luna, and Ginny all looking both smug and confused at the same time - well, other than Luna who looked like her usual unobservant self. Ron held out his hand and I felt a sudden relief when I saw our wands with him.

"Excellent - I need to go," Harry said. "Are you coming Emily?"

"You're seriously going to ask me that?" I said with an eye roll.

"But what are we going to use to get there?" Harry asked. "Brooms?"

"It'll take ages to find those," Luna spoke up suddenly. "Why don't we just use those?"

We all looked in the direction she was pointing and I saw three Thestrals walking out into the clearing. Harry and I looked at each other and nodded as we began to walk over to them.

"But there are only three of them," Ginny said from behind us. "How will we all get there?"

"What are you talking about - you all aren't going," Harry said. "This isn't your battle - "

"Harry, what are you talking about?" Ron asked. "Of course we are going to help - Sirius is our friend too, maybe you forgot. This isn't just about you."

"You all can't go," I said firmly.

Suddenly five more Thestrals came into view and began walking right for us. If it hadn't been for the enormous headache that just surged through my head, I probably would have questioned it, but for now I was just thankful.

"There, we have more than we need now," Ginny said.

"You all could get killed!" I said angrily. "This is _Voldemort_ we're talking about - don't you get how - "

"Yes, we understand," Hermione said. "Which is exactly why we need to be there to help - you two can't do this alone, you need some help."

"Fine - then we need to get going right now," Harry said. "Everyone get on a Thestral and get moving."

Luna and Neville nodded and began to walk over towards the strange looking animals, but the other three looked a bit confused.

"What's the problem?" I asked as I stepped towards mine.

"We can't see them," Hermione said. "How exactly are we supposed to get on them?"

"Here, I can help," Luna said cheerfully. "It'll be easy - all you have to do is hold on. They're quite friendly really, I'm sure they'll go easy on you."

"Friendly?" Ron muttered under his breath. "Is that why you can only see them if you see someone get killed?"

"Ron - stop complaining," Harry said. "Just listen to her."

Luna helped the other three get on their Thestrals as Neville helped me onto mine and Harry jumped up easily onto his. It didn't occur to me how short that I was until this moment.

"These things are awful," Neville muttered as he jumped up onto his. "We should have just gotten some bloody brooms."

"Neville, you can't ride a broom," I said.

"Oh yeah…" he said as if he had forgotten.

"Okay, let's get going," Harry said. "I'm not exactly sure where it is…but I suppose that we could just go on to the visitors entrance and London…"

We all nodded and got ready for the Thestrals to take off. It took a moment and my eyes widened very quickly as its wings expanded and we were quickly taking off into the air. I threw my arms around its neck and closed my eyes so I didn't have to watch as we zoomed off above the clouds - I was afraid that I would get sick from being at this altitude.

Only when we began to flatten out did I finally open my eyes again. I looked down below and my jaw dropped when I saw that we were flying high into the night sky above several little villages below that looked like they were doll houses from this altitude.

"This is mad!" Hermione shouted. "This shouldn't be happening!"

I looked back at the three of them that weren't able to see the Thestrals and I began to wonder what that was like. I couldn't imagine that it seemed normal from their perspective considering that they couldn't actually see what was holding them up in the air. Then again, I didn't see this as normal either and I could see the Thestrals. Nothing in our lives were normal…

"I think I'm going to be ill," Neville yelled next to me.

"You!" Ron shouted. "At least it doesn't seem like _you're_ floating in midair!"

I let out a small laugh and then looked forward again. I suddenly had another sickening thought that we were too late and that Sirius was already dead. I tried my hardest to push those thoughts away, but it could be true for all we knew. The only thing that could keep my mind off of my godfather's potential death was what Voldemort wanted him for - what was it that he wanted from Sirius so badly?

During the vision that we had seen earlier that day, which seemed like ages ago now, Voldemort was asking Sirius to get him something - but what? And why was Sirius refusing? Another thought flashed through my head that this had something to do with Harry and me. If whatever Voldemort requested had anything to do with us then I know that Sirius would never give in and give him what he wanted. If the roles were reversed, I would do the same thing.

I glanced over at Harry and he looked like he was deep in thought and everyone else seemed to be either terrified or confused - or in Luna's case, none of the above. In fact, she seemed to be acting as if what we were doing was any everyday thing. If we made it out of this alive, I was going to have to ask her how she always manages to not take anything to seriously.

"I think that we're getting closer!" Harry shouted back to all of us after a good while.

Just as he said it, the Thestral I was on began to tilt its head downward so that we were heading towards the ground. I looked around the area that we were landing and no one seemed to be out that night. I guess that it was lucky for us that no one was.

"That was awful," Hermione said as she jumped off her Thestral. "I am never doing that again."

"I second that," Neville said as he got off of his.

"Where now?" Ginny asked.

Harry looked around the area and pointed to a telephone booth that was sitting off in the corner. We all ran towards it and crammed ourselves in there. I found that we were all unnaturally close to one another and my face was directly next to Neville's.

"Well…this is uncomfortable," I muttered.

"I don't mind it much," Neville smirked.

"You're hilarious," I said with a straight face.

"Okay, whoever is nearest to the phone needs to dial six, two, four, four, two," Harry ordered.

I couldn't tell who it was that dialed the number, but after a moment a women's voice came through the phone that was loud enough for all of us to hear.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," she said happily. "Please state your name and business."

"Harry Potter, Emily Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood!" Harry shouted. "We're here to save someone!"

"Thank you," the woman's voice said. "Please take the badges that we have provided and wear them on the front of your robes."

A stack of badges appeared right in front of us. Harry picked one up and looked at his own as I read the one that came next.

_Emily Potter, Rescue Mission_.

Just as I was about to say something, the phone booth began to move down as we began to enter the Ministry of Magic. For a moment, I had to wonder if we would ever make it out…

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! If you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope that you had a good one - if not, I hope that you had a good day! The next chapter should be up around Tuesday or Wednesday!**

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	47. Rescue MissionOr Maybe Not?

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 47**

Everyone remained silent as the phone booth lowered itself into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic. We all held our wands out in preparation to be attacked as soon as we stepped into the Atrium, but that proved to be slightly difficult because of how cramped we were. When the door opened, all of us braced ourselves for an attack and we were pleasantly surprised that nothing was sent our way.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," the woman's voice echoed.

All of us slowly walked out and looked around the area like we were expecting Death Eaters to start jumping out and killing us where we stood. It was too easy...almost like some sort of trap so we would get our guard down. But the only thing that had any sort of movement in the area was a large, golden fountain that was sitting directly in the middle of the Atrium. On top of the water I noticed that there were statues of a witch, a wizard, a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf all standing together as if they were one.

"Well," Neville said quietly. "That was anti-climactic..."

"Let's get moving," Harry said. "We need to get into the Department of Mysteries before anyone finds us here."

"Right," I nodded. "And how exactly do we do that? I remember seeing the door in our dream, but I don't really know where that door is."

"I remember going past it during my hearing at the beginning of the year," Harry said. "Just follow me."

All of us grew silent as we quickly walked through the Atrium and toward the lift. I continued to look around with my wand at the ready until we made it across the room. Something about this entire situation didn't seem right. Voldemort didn't seem like the type of person that would have come here without any sort of army surrounding the place.

"It's a nice place really," Luna said suddenly.

Everyone's eyes darted over to her as we stepped into the lift and Hermione just rolled her eyes and shook her head. Did she realize that we were here to fight off Voldemort or did she miss that part completely? It's really hard to tell if she's listening half of the time.

Harry pressed the down button and we all readied our wands again. When we finally stopped, we all stepped out slowly and found ourselves in another dark corridor that was completely vacant. Harry caught my eye and seemed as confused as I did.

"Something's not right," he said quietly. "Someone should be here."

"I know," I said. "A security guard, a Death Eater - someone. It shouldn't be this easy to get into the Ministry..."

"Especially with Voldemort in here I would have thought that something would have been set up," Harry said and then looked back down the hallway. "Okay, we need to move - we're nearly there."

We all nodded and then walked quickly down the hallway behind him. The only thing other than us in this entire hallway seemed to be the flickering lights that lead us this way and that didn't comfort me in the least.

After a moment, we finally found ourselves standing in a place that I recognized. I had seen it so many times before this, but this was the only time that I had no desire to actually to go through this enormous door. It all seemed worse than a nightmare this time because I knew that this wasn't something that I could just wake up from.

Harry and I stepped up to the door and pushed it open just like we had in the dream. I held m breath as it opened up to reveal a round room with several doors all around it. Thinking back to the dream, I knew that the one we had to go through was the one directly across from us.

"It's that one there," Harry said. "Let's go - someone shut the door so no one can follow us."

Neville stepped back and shut the large, black door that had haunted so many of my dreams. As soon as it clicked, the entire room changed before us. The circular walls began to rotate around us and I immediately grabbed onto Harry in surprise. After a few moments, it finally stopped moving and the doors and walls became still once more.

"I'm glad that wasn't weird," I muttered.

"Do you remember which door we came through?" Hermione asked.

Everyone looked around at each of the doors and I was horrified to see that they all looked exactly the same. Now I understood what the purpose of the doors moving around was - they wanted to confuse us so we couldn't get out.

"Now what are we going to do?" Ron asked.

"What else can we do?" Harry asked. "We're going to have to go through each of them until we find Sirius."

"Which one should we start with?" I asked and then I looked to my left and picked out a door. "Maybe this one?"

"We have to star somewhere," Harry said urgently.

We all nodded and then walked up to the door. It was easily pushed open to reveal a room that seemed almost as empty as the one we came through. After a moment, I noticed a fairly large tank that was set up on the right side of the room that was filled with some sort of strange, green liquid that appeared to have something moving around inside of it.

"What is in that thing?" Ginny asked with a look of disgust.

"I don't know, but I know it isn't Sirius - we should probably move to the next room," I said.

Everyone seemed to ignore me as they moved closer to the tank aside from Neville who looked like he would rather jump off a cliff than see what that tank had swimming around in it.

"You know," Neville said to me. "They call this place the Department of Mysteries for a reason - I can't really blame them for wanting to keep strange things like this away from everyone."

"Exactly my point," I shrugged. "But no one listens to me..."

Harry stood up next to it and had the strangest look in his eye. Whatever was in that tank wasn't something that any of us could have predicted judging by all of their reactions.

"Brains?" Hermione said as though it couldn't be true.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Are you saying that their are brains in there?"

"They're just floating around in there," Ron murmured. "That's disgusting..."

"Hey, maybe you could grab one so you could have a brain for yourself," I said. "Can we go now?"

Ron laughed and rolled his eyes at my comment before we all made a sort of awkward shuffle towards the door. When I glanced back over towards the tank, I could have sworn that I saw a brain swimming through it myself. I needed to get out of this place...

When we stepped out of the door, Hermione immediately pointed her wand at the door and drew an enormous red X on it just as we went to shut it. I began to question why she did that when the wall and doors began to spin around once again. When they stopped, the X was still on a door and I realized that she was going to be keeping track of which doors we had already used.

"Good idea," Harry nodded. "Okay - let's try this door here."

We all followed behind him as he pushed the next door open. We all held our wands up, but we found ourselves in another vacant room. Although it was different from the previous one we had seen, it didn't look at all like the room that we had seen in our vision during the OWL exam. However, there was something different about this room that sent a shiver down my spine. From what I could tell, it was once some sort of amphitheater at one point or another. In the very center of the room, just underneath the rows of chairs that surrounded it, there was a large archway that had a black curtain hanging from its hinges.

"Let's go," Ron said. "I don't like this place..."

We started to walk away when I suddenly heard some whispering and I quickly spun around with my wand pointed directly at where I heard it. My eyes flickered all around the room, but nothing else seemed to be there.

"What is wrong?" Hermione asked sounding terrified.

"I heard something," I said while shaking. "Who's there!"

Nobody answered and Harry glanced around the room too in suspicion. I knew that I wasn't crazy - I had just heard something. It wasn't like I could make out what was said, but it was enough to let me know that someone else had to be there, but we seemed to be the only ones in the room. I heard something again and I immediately shot a spell the way.

"Stupefy!" I shouted.

The red spark shot across the room towards the archway, but it seemed to have been completely worthless.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked.

I ignores her as I listened to the voices slowly fading and it was silent again. Whatever it was, I knew that it couldn't have been Death Eaters because they would have fired back by now.

"You heard it too," I said slowly to Harry. "Didn't you?"

Harry nodded and I looked around at the others. Ron and Hermione looked confused and scared while the Ginny, Luna, and Neville were all looking at the archway like they had heard something as well. There was no way that we had all imagined it.

"Can we just go now," Hermione said nervously. "We need to hurry up."

"You're right," I said slowly. "Come on guys, let's check the next room..."

I grabbed onto Luna's arm and moved her back towards the door while she continued to stare back at the curtain that we had all seemed to have heard something from. Whatever it was, I knew that it wasn't a good sign. We had established years ago that hearing voices was never a good sign - especially in this sort of situation.

Hermione marked the door once we were all out of the room and we went through the same process that we had before of waiting for the doors to stop spinning so that we could check through the next one. When he didn't open it immediately, I quickly grew impatient at the thought of Sirius waiting for us and suffering because of how long we were taking.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked.

"It's locked," Harry said.

"Okay, well then we'll try another one," Hermione said as she began to walk towards another one.

"Wait - what if this one is it," I said. "We can't just skip it."

"Then how do you suppose we get through?" Ron asked.

"Er...well, I don't know," I shrugged and then pointed my wand at the knob. "Alohomora!"

The knob didn't move in the slightest and nothing seemed to change at all. I shrugged and stepped back thinking that we might actually have to skip this one since we couldn't get into it.

"Wait a minute," Harry said while reaching into his pocket. "What about the knife that Sirius gave to me? It's supposed to be able to unlock anything."

"It's worth a shot," Ron shrugged.

"But the door we went in during our dream wasn't locked," I said.

"Maybe it was different then," Harry said. "It couldn't hurt to try it out."

Harry jammed the knife into the lock and suddenly dropped it as the blade completely melted on the door. We all stepped back from it and let out a big sigh.

"I guess we could try another door," Hermione said softly. "Let's do this one."

We moved on to the next one and easily pushed it open. As soon as we did, I knew that this was the one that we had been searching for. It looked just like the one that we had seen in the dream and it led right into the room that Sirius was being held with Voldemort.

"This is it!" Harry said excitedly. "Come on - hurry up!"

We all raced through the room that was filled with all sorts of clocks and fancy jewels to find the second door in the room that we had been searching for all of this time. When we finally made it there, Harry quickly pushed open the other door and all of our wands flew up quickly as we moved our way into this room.

It was just like I remembered it in the dream. There were rows and rows of shelves that were stacked with all different sized orbs that didn't look like anyone had touched them due to the large amount of dust that was caked on them.

"Wow," Ron said with his mouth gaping.

"Where do we go?" Ginny asked.

"They were next to row ninety-seven," Harry said.

We quickly located where the numbers were on the shelves and quickly races through the room. Before we knew it we were running by eighty-nine...why couldn't we see anyone...ninety-two...we should be able to at least hear some sort of disturbance...ninety-six...were we too late?

"There it is - ninety-seven," Harry said.

We were all silent and I felt completely lost. Where was Sirius - where was Voldemort? Had this all been some sort of mistake? But how could that be if Kreacher had mentioned this place too. Had we really given them enough time to get out of here or had they even been here in the first place?

"Where are they?" Neville asked.

I remained speechless and began to walk around the general area. I peeked around in the other rows and found them all as empty as the entire building seemed to be. My blood ran cold at the thought that Voldemort had taken my godfather away from me and he wasn't even going to get caught in the act. I wanted to scream at the thought of being this helpless - I couldn't even avenge my godfather's death because he had gotten away with it.

"Emily," Harry said as he walked slowly up to me with his fists clinched. "Do you even think he was here?"

"He had to have been," I snapped. "Why else would we have seen what we saw - it doesn't make any sense!"

"What if it really was just a nightmare...?" Hermione asked hesitantly from where the others were standing.

"That we both saw at the same exact time?" I asked angrily. "That's impossible - it couldn't have been a coincidence."

"But - " Hermione started.

"We don't want to hear it Hermione," Harry said. "We already know what you're thinking."

I wanted to search the entire room, but I know that it wouldn't be worth it. No one was here and I couldn't be too sure that anyone had been here in the first place. Nothing made sense.

"Why does this have your names on it?" Ron said suddenly.

Both Harry and my eyes darted over to our friend and saw him looking at one of the many orbs that were sitting around the area. This one just so happened to be sitting at the ninety-seven marker that we had originally gone to. Was that a coincidence?

We both walked quickly over to it to see what exactly was written on it besides our names, but what we saw didn't exactly help us to figure out what it could be.

S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.  
Dark Lord  
and (?) Harry Potter and/or Emily Potter

"What is it?" Neville asked.

"No idea..." Harry murmured.

"Why would there be something in here with your names on it?" Ron asked.

"Maybe that's why we were brought here," I said quietly then I looked over at Harry. "Do you think that this was what Voldemort wanted from Sirius?"

"It makes sense," Harry said. "Why else would they be in a spot that was directly next to something that belonged to us."

Harry reached over towards the dusty orb that had our names in front of it and easily picked it up. What was this thing and why was it so important? Why would something that had our names on it be in the Department of Mysteries?

"What now?" I asked.

"Well I have a suggestion."

My blood ran cold and everyone around me suddenly looked as frightened as I was feeling. We had been caught - I should have figured that someone else would come along eventually. I held on tightly to my wand and slowly turned around to see a face that was all too familiar.

"How about you hand that over to me Mr. Potter?" Lucius Malfoy said.

Several Death Eaters walked up behind him and let out a chorus of demented laughs. They had us surrounded and outnumbered and there wasn't anything that we could do about it. As long as they had Sirius in their hands then they had something that we didn't. I stepped in front of Harry to block him from them, but I knew that it didn't matter regardless. If they wanted us dead then I hardly think that I could stop them.

"Where's Sirius?" I asked quickly.

"Just give me the prophecy and I'll be happy to tell you," he said with a twisted smirk.

"We're not that easily persuaded," Harry said while holding what they called 'the prophecy' closer towards him. "Now tell us where our godfather is."

"Is this a joke?" a woman beside him said loudly. "He thinks that he can order us around?"

"As long as we have the prophecy we can," I snapped.

"Here's the deal," Mr. Malfoy said. "Give us the prophecy and we won't kill you all - we'll just let you go off on your way."

"You'll kill us either way," Harry said. "I know that you have Sirius with you - now where is he?"

"You need to learn the difference between dreams and reality Potter," he said with a smirk that matched his son's completely. "The Dark Lord knows how to control you both - it's incredible how much he knows about you. Now hand it over now."

"Why don't we just take it from them - " the woman said as she began to step forward with her wand held up.

"Do not attack them!" Lucius demanded angrily. "They still have the prophecy with them - it cannot be broken!"

The woman let out an irritated sigh, but lowered her wand anyway. She stepped forward so she was standing directly next to Lucius Malfoy before she took down the hood that was covering her face. As soon as I saw her, I instantly knew who this woman was. I had seen her so many times before and had already grown a strong hatred for her because of her previous actions and this only added heat to the fire.

It was Bellatrix Lestrange. She looked healthy now than she had while she was in Azkaban, but that crazed look in her eye told me that her moral code hadn't gotten any better during her years in prison - in fact, she looked more psychotic now than I had ever seen her before.

I glanced over at Neville for a moment and his eyes had widened in fright and shock at the sight of seeing the women that had personally forced his parents into St. Mungo's. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. All of the others stood around us with their wands held tightly in their hands and they all seemed ready for any attack.

The only thing that we could do now was create more time to figure out what our next move was. The only plan that I had was to figure out why we were here.

"Why does he want it?" I asked Mr. Malfoy.

"What are you talking about?" Malfoy spat.

"The prophecy - what is it for?" I asked.

All of the Death Eaters went silent as they looked around at each other in what seemed like confusion. Bellatrix and Lucius seemed to look baffled and somehow offended with what I had said.

"Is this some sort of joke?" Malfoy asked.

"It has to be - of course they know what it is!" Bellatrix shouted. "Why else would they have it?"

"She isn't joking," Harry said. "We don't know what this prophecy is. We only just figured out about it."

"You're trying to tell me that Dumbledore never told you about this?" Malfoy said while nearly laughing in our faces. "That object that you're holding in your hands is everything - it is the reason that you have those bloody scars on your foreheads! It's the reason that the Dark Lord didn't rise to power the night that he attempted to kill you - it has the secrets of your past."

"So why would Voldemort want it - " I started.

"Don't you dare speak his name!" Bellatrix screeched.

"Enough!" Lucius shouted at Bellatrix. "The Dark Lord wants it because it's about all three of you. It's the reason that he attacked the two of you and your parents on that night. Haven't you ever wondered why he would do that? This prophecy that was made is the reason."

Harry and I looked at one another and then back at Mr. Malfoy. Of course we had wondered about it, but we never knew before that there had been a prophecy made that led to all of this. Suddenly I gained a curiosity to know what had been said to provoke the attack that changed our entire lives around.

"I couldn't imagine why Dumbledore wouldn't have told you about this," Lucius said. "It has everything on it - all of the answers to your past - "

Though I could hardly hear Harry behind me, I made out what he was saying clearly and understood the plan. It didn't matter what Mr. Malfoy said - we weren't going to give Voldemort what he wanted. There was no chance.

"Smash the shelves when I say now," Harry breathed.

My eyes flickered over the others and they all remained calm despite the order. Part of me wondered if they had actually heard him, but they must have if I did.

" - the Dark Lord wondered why you hadn't gotten it from here before now," Lucius said.

"If he wanted it so badly, why didn't he come get it himself?" I asked.

Bellatrix let out a shriek of laughter and some of the others in the group laughed at me as though I had just spoken nonsense.

"It's your prophecy, you stupid girl," Mr. Malfoy scoffed. "The only person that can take the prophecy out of its place is the person - or people in this case - that it's addressed to."

"Then why would you think that we would just hand over a prophecy that is rightly ours?" I snapped. "Voldemort should have known - "

"Don't say the Dark Lords name you filthy half-blood!" Bellatrix shrieked again.

"NOW!" Harry shouted.

Suddenly I shouted the first spell that came to mind at the full shelves next to me and ran off before they could come down hit me. We all sprinted towards the exit and I could only wonder how far we would make it before they caught up to us. How were we ever going to find Sirius now?

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope you liked it! Sorry that it is up later than I said it would be and tell me if there are any mistakes so I can fix them. I did have a Beta Reader, but I gave her the task basically at the last minute and decided myself that we could do it properly with the next chapter if wait still wants to.**

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	48. Dealing with Death Eaters

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 48**

My mind was flying along with my feet as I raced along the rows of shelves towards the door. Harry ran ahead of me leaving me alongside Hermione and Neville and I could only assume that the others were behind me because I could hardly hear anything over the sound of breaking glass and yells of protest behind me.

"GET BACK HERE POTTER!" Mr. Malfoy yelled over all of the noise.

"DO YOU HONESTLY THINK THAT'S GOING TO WORK?" I shouted back as we ran through the doorway that led out of the room.

Hermione slammed the door shut and waved her wand quickly in the air why shouting out the spell that sealed the door shut behind us. It wasn't until then that I realized that there were only four of us there.

"Where are the others?" Harry asked.

"I thought they were behind us," Neville said.

"Maybe they had to take another way," Hermione said.

"I don't know about you all, but I think we need to get away from this door," I said. "I don't know how long we can hold them and I'm sure that the others will be fine as long as they stick together. We just need to get that prophecy away from their reach."

Harry nodded and then we quickly ran through the room that was filled with all of the fancy clocks and jewels and all sorts of other things. Just as we got to the door that led into the circular room, we were stopped by a large man that was pointing his wand at all of us.

"Where do you think you're going?" he said with a deep voice. "STUPEFY!"

We all fell to the ground and rolled over so that we were hidden behind some sort of furniture and Harry frantically looked over at me as he shoved the prophecy into his pocket and held out his wand before he jumped up again and pointed his wand at our attacker.

"Stupefy!" I shouted back.

The man was sent flying back into a stack of furniture that was behind him, and just when I thought we were going to get out of the room, another man came running into the room with his wand pointed at Harry.

"Avada - " he started.

"Expelliarmus!" I shouted instantly.

The wand flew from his hand and he looked wildly around at us. We all stood at a standstill for a minute before he suddenly jumped over and grabbed me around the throat with his arm.

"Move and I'll kill her!" he shouted.

Without even considering what I was doing, I jammed my chin into his arm and ran my elbow right into his ribs and he released me enough so that I could scramble out of his hold. I'm not sure whose spell hit her first because I heard all three of the others shout something at him and he was shot back against the wall without looking like he was going to be recover for a good while.

"Let's go!" Harry ordered.

We all raced out into the circle room, but only to find three more Death Eaters standing in our way - not that we actually knew where we were going.

"Get them!" one of the Death Eaters yelled.

"RUN!" I yelled.

Spells were shot all around us as we raced to the first door that we could find. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like we all made it through the same way and I could have sworn that I saw Harry and Hermione retreat back into the room that we had just come from. When I looked behind me, I saw Neville and one of the Death Eaters running the same way. The room that we were in contained several jars that were filled with liquid that held some sort of strange creature inside of it. From what I could tell, they weren't anything that I had ever seen before, but most of them appeared to be a mix of some sort of eel, frog, or fish - none of which should ever go together. I didn't take the time to consider what they could possibly be as I shot a spell towards the Death Eater that was chasing us.

Neville and I quickly turned the corner of the room and jumped behind a stack of jars and watched as the Death Eater ran directly past us. He nearly missed us, but as soon as he looked over at us, he stopped dead in his tracks and ran back at us.

"Expelliarmus!" Neville shouted.

"Petrificus Totalus!" I said.

After the man's wand flew out of his hand, he went as stiff as a board and fell backwards into a large conglomeration of jars behind him, all of which shattered. The liquid from the jars spread around us quickly and the creatures in them started to flop around like a fish out of water.

I heard a loud hiss come from one and the other creatures around it mimicked the noise as they found use of their small feet. They began to hop around and Neville and I took one look at each other and decided that it was best that we didn't stick around to see what these small things were capable of. The fact that they were in the Department of Mysteries was enough to tell me that they weren't as innocent as they appeared.

"We need to go," I said as I grabbed onto Neville's arm and pulled him away from the man on the ground.

We ran towards the circular room again and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I heard a sudden scream erupt from where we had just come from. What freaked me out even more was that I had put a spell on him that was supposed to prevent him from doing that sort of thing.

When I glanced over my shoulder, I was horrified to see huge, pearly white sparks erupting from the corner where the man was screaming. It looked like it was some sort of lightening and I was shocked to hear a loud zapping noise coming from the area that gave off the feeling that something was being electrocuted.

"AAAAAHHHH!" the man screamed in pain behind us.

As soon as we got to the door, we slammed it shut and I shouted out the curse to seal the door shut. Even knowing that what had just happened was behind us, I could still feel my heart beating a mile a minute and I felt like I was going to collapse out of fright.

"Avada K - "

"Emily - watch out!" Neville shouted before jumping and practically tackling me to the ground and pointing his wand at someone that I couldn't see. "Expelliarmus!"

I heard a wand hit the ground just as Neville jumped up again and pulled me up so that I was standing up again. The man hidden behind the mask behind us scrambled up so he was standing again and leaped after his wand, but he was too late.

"Impedimenta!" I shouted.

"Stupefy!" Neville shouted at the same time.

The man was suddenly thrown back against the wall with a loud crack that made me wince as he let out a grunt of pain. When I heard another scream, I spun around again and looked directly at the door it came from.

"I'll go see what that was," I said quickly. "I think I saw Harry and Hermione go through the first room we came out of over there."

I pointed over to the door that remained open from where we had run out of it originally. I didn't hear as much commotion coming from that end, so I could only hope that Neville would be safer than I would be going after the unknown screaming girl.

"Be careful," Neville said to me.

Before I ran off, I pulled him into a tight hug and felt like I wanted to cry. This could very well be the last time I saw him. In pained me to think it, but I knew that Neville wasn't the best fighter which only meant that he was more vulnerable. This was one of the main reasons that I had attempted to stick by him since we came into this place - I was afraid that I would lose him if he got out of my sight.

"I'll see you later," I said with a crack in my voice.

He nodded and then we finally broke out of our embrace. I could hardly bring myself to look at him one more time before I walked towards the door that I had heard the noise. He gave me one final smile before he vanished from my sight. I looked forward and let out a breath before I pushed open the door in front of me. I couldn't even begin to imagine what was going to be on the other side.

Once I pushed the door open and held my wand out so I was ready for an attacker, I found myself face to face with the second half of our group. It took a moment to locate them because of how dark it was, but I found them directly underneath Venus. Luna was pacing around Ron, who was sitting on the ground in some sort of daze, and Ginny was sitting next to him with a grimace on her face as she held onto her ankle.

All around them I saw fairly large objects that strongly resembled planets floating around the room. There were stars all around the area and I could hardly make out the dark floor that held me up. Why did this room seem so small from the outside when it appeared like a vast wonderland in here? Oh right...magic...

"What's going on?" I asked.

"There were Death Eaters," Luna said. "And they chased us into this room. My father always suspected that they had a room like this in here...only he said that there were - "

"Where are the Death Eaters now?" I asked finding myself impatient.

"We don't know," Ginny groaned. "Probably lost in here somewhere - it's incredibly easy to get lost in here..."

"Then I guess we need to get out while I still have the door open," I said.

"Maybe that's why we landed on the ground again," Ginny said. "The gravity probably sets back in when the door is open. Could you help me up - I'm pretty sure I broke my ankle..."

I walked over to them and helped Ginny so she could stand up. She groaned in pain as Luna and I helped her up and that's when I actually recognized how strange Ron was being. He hadn't said a word since I'd been in there and he was looking out at the planets like a child would look at his favorite toy.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked.

"We don't know," Ginny said. "I think he got hit with something."

"Hey Emily - I can see Uranus," Ron laughed. "Get it, like I can see - "

"I get it Ron," I said. "Now get up."

"But I don't want - " he started.

Luna helped Ginny walk out of the room herself while I had to attempt to drag Ron out of the room. This became a problem when I remembered that I'm a lot smaller than he is.

"Would you just come on," I said as I pulled on his arm with all of my strength.

"You didn't say the magic word," he giggled.

"Please?" I suggested helplessly.

"Abracadabra!" he shouted and threw his arms up while looking very proud of himself.

"Ron - please!" I begged.

"Okay," he said while jumping so he was standing upright. "Are we going to the zoo?"

"Of course," I said. "Just follow me - it's just in the other room there."

"Will there be flying monkeys?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes, just get out of this room," I said quickly.

Just as I started to hear footsteps behind us, we made it to the door and I slammed it shut and sealed it quickly before whoever was following us could make it. Now we were just going to have to find Harry again. The biggest problem now was that we were starting to lose fighters on our end.

"There you are!" Harry said as he ran through another door.

Neville, whose nose was bleeding very heavily, followed closely behind my brother and was carrying another person in his arms - it was Hermione and she was unconscious.

"What happened?" I asked.

"We're not really sure," Harry breathed heavily. "He used something on her that we've never seen before."

Neville opened his mouth to start explaining what happened to himself when a door opposite of us burst open and three Death Eaters jumped out of it. One of them was Bellatrix.

"There they are!" she shrieked. "Get them - get the prophecy!"

We all quickly opened up the door that was next to us and raced through as fast as our injuries would allow us. I helped Ron through and we all found ourselves in the room with the tank of brains. Of course - it had to be a practically empty room. Just our luck...

"Get the boy!" Bellatrix shouted as she got through the door. "He's the one with the prophecy!"

"No!" I shouted as they ran at Harry.

I let go of Ron and races over to Bellatrix who had practically gotten to Harry. Without even thinking about it, I jumped on her and tackled her to the ground.

"Get off of me you filthy - " she shrieked.

Before she had a chance to finish what she said, I somehow managed to elbow her directly in the face during our mad scramble. I heard a loud crack and knew instantly that her nose matches Neville's. She let out a loud shriek, but something else was distracting me.

"Ooh - look Harry!" Ron said over everyone. "Those things are brains - Accio brain!"

Everyone in the room seemed like they were put on pause when a brain flew out of the tank. I watched in horror as the brain landed right into Ron's hands.

"Isn't this thing wonderful?" Ron said with a childish smile. "I can't wait to show Dad - wait, no - STOP!"

The brain's tentacles began to entangle themselves around his body and Ron began to yell out several obsentities as he struggled to get out of it. That was when I just noticed that the person I was pinning down was moving. When I looked back down at her, she had her wand in hand and a cruel smile on her face.

"Crucio!" she shouted.

Everything around me disappeared and all I could think about was the excruciating pain that was shooting through every nerve in my body. I felt like I was on fire, but in this situation death wouldn't be able to relieve me.

When the pain finally stopped, I couldn't bring myself to move. I just laid there in agony and tried to bring myself back to reality. When I finally came to, all I could hear was loud yells and thumping from people hitting one another.

I stumbled up from the ground and held onto the wall until I was standing upright again. My vision was shaky, but I finally began to focus and looked ahead to see that Harry and Neville were both shooting every spell that came to their mind at Bellatrix as she attempted to block their attacks.

Feeling like I needed to do something, I felt around my coat pocket and pulled my wand out of it. Looking around at the room, I could see that the only thing that I could possibly use to distract them were some desks that had been placed next to the brain tank.

"Incendio!" I shouted weakly. "Reducto!"

Fire erupted from my wand at the first spell that set all of the desks up in flames. Once the second spell hit them, all of the flamed objects exploded like some sort of bomb.

All three of the Death Eaters hit the floor to avoid getting hit while Harry looked over at me and we quickly raced out of the room. Part of me wondered if it was a good idea to leave the others there, but I was almost positive that they would chase after us knowing that Harry had the prophecy.

My head was spinning as we ran through the circular room and pushed blindly through another door. I looked behind me for a moment, but long enough to see that Neville was trailing us along with Bellatrix and two other Death Eaters. When I turned my head back, I nearly fell when I stopped dead in my tracks just in time to save myself from falling down.

We were back in the room with the archway and we had just nearly fallen where the landing went off to where the seating was. If we had fallen, the prophecy definitely would have shattered into pieces.

"What now?" I asked desperately.

"I guess we have to keep moving," he said while breathing heavily.

Neville caught up to us just as we started hopping down the stone seating that lead to where the archway stood. This room was going to make it impossible to hid from anyone - there was nothing we could hide ourselves with.

"We've got you now!" Bellatrix said with delight. "THEY'RE IN HERE!"

Several other Death Eaters burst through the door within the next second or two - one of them being Lucius Malfoy who was looking more demented now than I had ever seen him before. This prophecy was so important to him - but why? Was he that desperate to get on Voldemort's good side?

"You see Potter," Lucius said as he stepped towards us. "The Dark Lord always wins in the end."

"Funny, it didn't seem that way when we got rid of him the first time," I spat.

"Shut your mouth you filthy child," Malfoy snarled. "Just hand over the prophecy now Potter."

"I don't think so," Harry said as he clutched the prophecy closer to him.

Bellatrix and Lucius narrowed their eyes, but it was then that Bellatrix finally seemed to notice who was standing with us. A twisted smile went across her face as she got a closer look at Neville.

"Longbottom, isn't it?" she asked with a demented smile.

Neville only narrowed his eyes, but refused to answer her - not that she needed one anyway. Bellatrix didn't need to have him confirm it because she already knew who he was. After all, he was the spitting image of the people that she had forced into St. Mungo's all those years ago.

"I had the pleasure of meeting your parents Longbottom," she smirked. "It would certainly be a shame if you had to join them because your friends won't hand over what we want."

She stepped closer to him and I rose my wand quickly. For a half of a second, she almost looked surprised.

"Don't touch him," I growled.

She let out a high-pitched laugh and rolled her eyes before stepping over to where I was standing. None of the other Death Eaters made a sound as she stared at me dead in the eyes.

"Haven't had enough Potter?" she smirked. "Maybe I should give you the same treatment I gave your little boyfriend's parents. I bet that'll convince him to hand that over."

Harry's eyes flickered over to me, but I didn't have enough time to open my mouth before she grabbed me by the back of the shirt and pulled me so she could pin my against her with her wand pointed at my temple. At the same time, another Death Eater stepped up and snatched my wand out of my hand.

"Now hand it over," she snarled at Harry. "Or I'll make sure that she gets it worse than his parents did."

Harry's eyes widened and I shook my head slightly. He wanted to give in - I could see it in his eyes. I wanted to say something, but I wasn't exactly in a position to start arguing with anyone. Why is it that I was constantly being put into a hostage situation?

Harry's hand slowly came towards Lucius and I closed my eye so I wouldn't have to watch him hand over everything that Voldemort needed. I understood why he did it, but he had to know that this wasn't going to stop them from hurting any of us.

"Wait," Harry said suddenly.

I opened my eyes back up and he pulled the prophecy back up against him. Harry looked from Bellatrix, to Lucius, and finally to me. What was he doing now?

"How do I know you'll let her go if I give this to you?" he asked.

"You're hardly in a position to start bargaining," Bellatrix scoffed loudly in my ear.

"Neither are you," someone snarled behind us.

The voice was familiar, but I wasn't sure if it was my imagination playing tricks on me. There was a loud BANG and I was suddenly thrown to the ground where I hid my head hard on the stone underneath of Bellatrix's weight.

"Get off my goddaughter," Sirius spat above me.

Bellatrix jumped up and went to strike, but was knocked over quickly by Mad-Eye Moody who suddenly appeared. Once the first few spells were set off by the newcomers, a battle practically started in the room as Sirius helped me up to my feet. My vision was slightly blurred for a moment, but once I gained focus I could make out that Lupin, Kingsley, and Tonks were also in the room dueling some of the other Death Eaters. Once I was completely upright, Sirius handed over my wand with a smile.

"Thanks - wait a minute," I said. "Sirius - you're okay!"

I threw my arms around his waist and he let out a muffled laugh and briefly hugged me back having to remember that we weren't exactly picking a very good time to have a moment.

"Listen to me Emily!" Sirius spoke loudly over the angry yells of the duelers. "You need to find Harry and Neville and get that prophecy out of here - do you understand?"

"But - " I started.

Just before I could finish my sentence, a Death Eater began to run at Sirius and I quickly held up my wand and thought of the first spell that came to mind.

"Stupefy!" I shouted.

The man was thrown backwards into a wall and Sirius raised an eyebrow as he turned around and saw what had happened.

"Nice one," he smirked. "But you need to go - please don't argue with me."

"But we can help - " I started again.

"We've got this Emily," he begged. "Please just do as I ask."

"Fine," I said. "But promise me that you'll be safe."

"Of course I will," he said with a sideways glance. "Now get out of here."

"Sirius!" Harry suddenly shouted as he ran over.

"We'll talk later Harry - I promise," he said as he shot a spell at a Death Eater that was charging at Tonks. "Just get yourself to safety."

"But - " he started.

"You two are your parents children," he chuckled. "We'll meet up with you later, okay? We're going to be fine. Just get the others and get yourselves out of here."

Even though we didn't want to leave him, we knew that he would start to get angry if we didn't listen to him. Before we even walked a foot away, I already found Sirius racing after Bellatrix looking eager for the fight. It's incredible how much happier he looked when he wasn't locked away in his home.

"Where's Neville?" Harry asked.

"Ummm..." I said while looking around the room. "Oh there he is and..."

I raised an eyebrow when I noticed that his legs were violently moving around so he couldn't stand up properly. The Death Eater that was across from him had his wand pointed at him again, but we didn't let him finish his spell.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted.

"Stupefy!" I shouted.

He was sent flying to the ground and we quickly took this opportunity to grab Neville and get out of there. It was difficult to drag him along, but Harry and I had him put his arms around our shoulders as we walked out of the room.

"What did they do to you?" I asked as he kicked me in the pet and made me stumble a bit.

"No idea," he said as he spat some blood from his mouth that had run down from his bloody nose.

"Can you try to control your feet a little?" Harry asked desperately.

"I am trying," he said miserably. "Nothing's working - "

Suddenly his leg flew up and kicked me in the leg and made me trip to the ground. Once I fell, it was like dominoes as each of us made our way to the ground. My eyes became very wide when I heard a sudden rip and a loud smash. I couldn't see it because Neville was practically crushing me underneath him, but it didn't take much thought to figure out what it was.

The prophecy had just been broken.

* * *

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	49. Pain Beyond Imagine

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. **

**Author's Note: If you see any grammar mistakes or anything as such, just tell me in a review and I'll fix them as soon as possible.**

**Chapter 49**

It was gone. The one thing that would have told us all of the secrets of our past had just been smashed into nothingness and now no one would know what it had said.

"Oh no - I'm so sorry," Neville said sounding defeated. "I didn't mean to - "

"It wasn't your fault," I said.

"But it's broken!" Neville said with guilt. "I can't believe - "

Suddenly he went very quiet and his eyes grew wide. What had just happened? Did the spell just have another effect on him or what?

"It's Dumbledore - " he said and pointed behind us.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked quickly.

We both jerked our heads back and our jaws dropped when I saw Albus Dumbledore walking amongst the Order. It had been a long time since I had last seen him and it shocked me that he had come out of hiding to help us. Where had he been? Who had contacted him about this incident? How did the Order even figure it out?

As soon as the Death Eaters began to notice his presence, they seemed even more shocked than we were. Several of them attempted to retreat from the fight, but with only a single movement of the wand, Dumbledore sent them backward and forced them to stay in the room.

The only two people that didn't seem to notice that Dumbledore had shown up was Sirius and Bellatrix who were still dueling in the corner of the room. As we helped Neville to stand up again, I listened to my godfather as he taunted his cousin for a better fight.

Sirius seemed to be happier than I had ever seen him. Nothing could have made him any more thrilled than to be included in this fight and he was going to make the most of it while he could. I'm sure that Dumbledore wasn't going to be happy that he came out of hiding without his direct order, but it wasn't exactly in Sirius's nature to follow all the rules.

Neville suddenly kicked me in the shin again and I had to grab onto a railing of the steps that we were trying to go up. As soon as I caught my balance, I notices just how quiet it had gotten all of a sudden. When I looked up, the first thing I noticed was a particularly bright green light that erupted through the room. It flew through the air and quickly connected with Sirius's chest.

Everything went silent, everything was still. It couldn't be true, it was some sort of mistake. Every part of my body froze and I felt like I was in a horrible nightmare that I couldn't escape. Sirius's face had grown pale as he began to fall toward the archway that was placed behind him. It seemed like slow motion as he fell through it and my heart seemed to stop beating when he didn't fall through the other side.

He was gone.

Although subconsciously, I knew that I had just allowed Neville to fall to the ground as my body went numb. Nothing felt real and it felt like everything was happening in slow motion. My brother was running at the scene and was screaming horribly enough for me to hear as a pained muffled cry.

Lupin grabbed him before he could get too close to Bellatrix as she laughed victoriously at the death of her cousin and the misery that had just erupted around the room because of her deed. Harry began to yell more, but I couldn't make out the words as I backed into the wall behind me.

It hadn't happened. It wasn't true. Any second from now, Sirius would jump from behind the veil and laugh at us all for this horrible trick. But as the seconds passed, I knew that this wasn't going to happen. Sirius was gone. And it was all her fault.

From having a feeling of complete emptiness, my mood did a complete 360 as I suddenly grew furious. Bellatrix - this was her fault. And I wasn't going to sit here and allow her to take my godfather away - not here, not now. Never before had I wanted to kill someone so badly as I did this woman.

I suddenly broke out into a sprint.

Just as Bellatrix glanced over and saw me chasing her, I suddenly found myself being pulled back. Someone's arms were thrown around me and I couldn't move.

"Let go of me!" I cried.

"He's gone Emily," Dumbledore said softly as he restrained me. "Trying to kill her won't change that."

Bellatrix let out another laugh and then turned on her heels and then took off towards the door that led into the circular room. At that point, I had completely lost myself.

I fell to my knees and covered my face with my hands as I sobbed uncontrollably. Sirius was gone and there wasn't anything that I could do about it. He had fallen through the veil and I would never see him again. He had disappeared just like my parents - fighting a battle that should have been mine.

Flashes flew through my mind of every moment that I had spent with my godfather. When I had first seen him in the Forbidden Forest...the huge smile that lit up us face when Harry and I got to see him this summer at Grimmauld Place...meeting him in the Shrieking Shack during third year so he could tell me about all of his adventures with my dad and I could tell him what it was like being free...him offering for Harry and me to come live with him after we caught Peter Pettigrew...the way that Sirius was willing to do anything to help and protect us with whatever came our way.

And now that was all there was going to be. There would be no more memories made - it was all finished because of me. Sirius was gone because we had been foolish enough to come here because of Voldemort.

It was then that I noticed that Dumbledore was knelt down on the ground with his arms around my shoulders trying to comfort me. I probably would have appreciated this more if I hadn't felt so numb, but at the same time I liked having someone there that cared enough.

"It's not your fault Emily," Dumbledore whispered to me.

"Yes it is," I said through my sobs. "I shouldn't have seen that vision anyway - "

"You cannot control everything," Dumbledore said softly. "I have come to learn that over the years myself."

Feeling like I didn't have the ability to release any more tears, I finally wiped my face clean and Dumbledore helped me to stand up. I looked around at the people around the room and found that someone was missing.

"Where's Harry?" I croaked.

Dumbledore looked around for a moment and then we both started to walk out of the room at once. Some of the members of the Order began to follow, but Dumbledore held up his hand for them to stop.

"Help the others out," he ordered. "Miss Potter, I ask that you don't - "

"I'm not leaving without my brother," I said instantly.

Dumbledore looked hesitant, but nodded as we quickly began to exit the room where we found ourselves in the circular room once more. This time we found that there was another door opened that seemed to lead out towards the Atrium.

"Get your wand ready," Dumbledore ordered. "And stay behind me..."

He trailed off as we stepped through the door and looked around the corner. He motioned for me to follow and we quickly raced down the hallway. It was actually pretty amazing that Dumbledore moved so quickly for his age - whatever that may be.

"Where do you think he went?" I asked quietly.

"After Ms. Lestrange, no doubt," he answered quickly.

When we arrived at the lift, I heard a short-lived scream from below and then some more yelling. I looks over at Dumbledore and he had his eyebrows clenched together - deep in thought from the look of him. I was about to ask him what he was thinking when my scar suddenly felt like it had been set of fire. I let out a groan and my vision blackened for a second. When I began to focus again, Dumbledore didn't look surprised in the least, although there I could see the worry on his face as he helped me back up from where I had fallen to my knees.

"He's here," Dumbledore said gravely. "Try to remember your Occlumency - you're going to need it now that he knows he can use it against you."

Voldemort was in the building and I didn't doubt for a second that he had already found Harry now that he wasn't with anyone who could help protect him. A fear suddenly shot through me - he was going to kill my brother if we couldn't get there fast enough.

When the lift finally stopped and the door flew open, I started to run off, but Dumbledore grabbed my arm and pulled me back so he could walk ahead of me.

"You must not let your emotions cloud your senses," Dumbledore said. "It isn't wise to run out into a fight you aren't prepared for."

I wanted to shout at him that we didn't have time to be careful or patient, but at the same time I had to remind myself that this was Dumbledore that was with me. He would know what to do in this sort of situation - it was just the sort of person that he was.

When we stepped out into the Atrium, we tried to remain out of view as long as possible. The first thing that I noticed, other than the awful pain that was shooting across my forehead, was the three people that were next to the large fountain that was sitting in the middle of the atrium. One of them, Bellatrix, was on the ground with a sickening smile across her face as she looked up at the man that stood across from Harry with his back to us. Voldemort.

"Dumbledore - " I started.

"Stay silent," Dumbledore said under his breath. "Whatever you do, stay out of Voldemort's way, do you understand?"

"Yes sir, but - " I whispered back.

"Emily, listen to me," he spoke over me. "Once I have Voldemort's attention, I want you to get Harry and get out of here."

"But what about you?" I asked.

"Don't worry about me Miss Potter," he said calmly. "This won't be the first duel I've ever been in and it certainly won't be the last. Just get yourselves away - you two are what he really wants here."

I nodded and then turned my attention back to Harry and Voldemort who were both staring coldly at one another. It took a lot of restraint to keep myself from not running over and jumping in front of Harry do I could protect him, but Dumbledore had a plan and I had to stick with it. After all, Dumbledore knew how Voldemort functioned a little bit better than I did.

"You smashed my prophecy?" Voldemort snarled at Harry.

"It wasn't your prophecy," Harry said angrily. "It belonged to me and my sister."

"I don't care who you think it belonged to Potter," Voldemort spat. "That prophecy belonged to me as far as I'm concerned and your ruined it just like you have everything else."

"I tried to - " Bellatrix started.

"Enough!" Voldemort shrieked at Bellatrix and then turned back to Harry. "I've put up with you and your sister long enough and I will put an end to it once and for all. So here's what's going to happen - Bellatrix, I want you to go find the girl."

"She isn't here," Harry said too quickly.

"Don't lie to me boy," Voldemort sneered. "I know that she's here with you - I'm sure of it actually. I want her in here with us so I can have you watch her as I splatter her brains around the room - it'll be your little punishment for breaking my prophecy Potter."

"Stay here until he's occupied," Dumbledore said quietly to me.

I nodded and my eyes widened as he stepped across the floor and walked over towards Voldemort like he was taking a morning stroll. Bellatrix was walking back towards us and her eyes widened when Dumbledore sent a spell towards her and she flew across the atrium.

"I don't think that finding Miss Potter will be necessary Tom," Dumbledore said all to calmly.

For a moment, there was a flash of fear thar flew across Voldemort's face, but then it turned into anger as he pointed his wand at his former teacher.

"Dumbledore, I should have known you would be here," Voldemort said.

"You should have known better than to have come here," Dumbledore said cooly. "I have called the Aurors already and they shall be here soon to collect you."

"They'll only find your dead carcass here old man," Voldemort spat.

Suddenly a green flash went directly towards Dumbledore, but with a quick flick of the wrist, one of the statues from the fountain flew over and took the spell for him. When the gold shattered into pieces around him, Voldemort clenched his teeth angrily. It was then that he began to send several different spells toward his enemy and they both began their duel.

I took a deep breath and edged my way around the room. Harry was up against the wall looking as shocked as I was that Dumbledore was easily blocking every single spell that was thrown his way. Voldemort's fury heightened and he began to yell as he sent a large wall of fire towards the old man he was dueling. But he was only disappointed once more when Dumbledore easily took it down with the water that flowed from the fountain.

That's when I took off from behind Voldemort. I ran as quickly as I could towards my brother and grabbed his arm and began to pull him towards the exit of the atrium, but Harry seemed to be frozen to the spot.

"We need to get out of here," I said urgently.

Harry's eyes were still locked on the duel in front of him. When I only took a moment to glance over at the scene, my scar felt like it went up in flames as my eyes locked with Voldemort's. When he saw me, a cruel smile erupted on his face and he suddenly whirled around and disappeared.

"Harry - come on," I said in a panic. "NOW!"

Harry seemed to have suddenly come back to life when we made a move for the door. My heart was racing a mile a minute and it was then that I heard the frightened cry of Dumbledore that made me stop in my tracks.

"NO!" Dumbledore said sounding terrified.

"What's - " I started.

Suddenly I felt a pain in my head that made me fall to the ground. If it was possible for your brain to split in half, then I was certain that was what was happening. Never in my life had I experienced a pain like this - it made me want to curl up and die without even putting up any more of a fight.

I couldn't see anything around me because I could only pay attention to the sickening crack of my bones as I fell to the ground and felt was my muscles pulled against my bones unnaturally making my arms and legs move in a way that shouldn't have been possible.

"Kill me Professor Dumbledore," a growl erupted from my mouth.

"EMILY!" I heard Harry shout from what seemed like miles away.

Flashes of memories suddenly filled up my mind. Sirius falling into the veil...Voldemort being brought back to life...dementors swarming around Harry at the Quidditch match...Hermione lying in the hospital when she had been petrified...the look in Dudley's eyes when the dementors had attempted to take his soul...Cedric being murdered in front of us...

All of this with the pain surging throughout my body made the whole thing worse than death. There was no relief and I heard a horrid scream erupt from my mouth along with a loud SNAP from my leg.

Then, all at once, the pain suddenly escaped my body and I fell into a blackness. There was a throbbing feeling that came from my head and my leg, but everything else felt numb. That's when I heard my brother's strained voice coming from next to me.

"You're weak," Harry growled. "Just give up old man."

He said more, but I couldn't hear it over the sound of several footsteps racing around me. I tried to open my eyes, but I felt weak and could hardly breath when I attempted to move myself.

Everything was silent for a moment and I wondered if I had finally died, but that was when I heard Dumbledore's voice next to me.

"Are you both all right?" he asked.

"Yes," croaked Harry.

Everyone went silent and I opened my mouth to say something, but my head started to throb again and I winced with the pain of it all. I felt a sudden pressure on my arm that felt like a hand and the last thing I heard before I fell into the blackness was from my brother.

"It's okay now Emily," Harry said with a crack in his voice. "He's gone now...you're safe..."

...

When I saw light again, I winced and looked around the room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but I found myself lying in the hospital wing and surrounded by Harry, Dumbledore, Neville, Luna, Snape, Madam Pomfrey, and some members from the Order.

"She needs to rest Dumbledore," Madam Pomfrey said sounding irritated. "Can this not wait - just look at her!"

"Where are we?" I croaked. "Where's Voldemort - what happened?"

"Just settle down Emily," Dumbledore said. "Everything is fine now."

"Harry - are you okay?" I asked sounding like I was seconds from death.

"It depends on how you look at it," he whispered as he grabbed a hold of my hand.

"Emily - Harry, I'm going to have to ask you to come to my office with me," Dumbledore said looking at the floor.

"Albus - I seriously recommend that you do this later," Madam Pomfrey said. "Neither of them are in any sort of condition to be moving around - "

"It's fine," I said realizing what was going on. "I'd rather get it over with now. Harry, can you help me?"

"You're leg is still repairing itself - it'll be another hour before you should move it - " Madam Pomfrey said and then shook her head. "Oh, fine. It isn't like anyone listens to me anyway."

Harry and Dumbledore helped me walk out of the room and the others sat behind looking bewildered and confused. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Dumbledore wanted us to talk about what happened. It wasn't something that I wanted to do, but I knew that it would be best to do this now rather than to wait until the next day. I was already in pain now, both physically and mentally, and putting off telling him what happened would only worsen the whole situation.

"EMILY!"

My head turned slowly and I winced as I felt some skin feel like it had stretched when I did. It was George and he looked paler than I was used to seeing him. Not far behind him was Fred who expression was identical to his brother's. When they saw my face, their eyes widened and George nearly looked like he was going to cry while Fred seemed to be at a loss for words.

"We're fine George, don't worry," I said softly. "I need to go speak with Dumbledore right now, could you wait for me?"

"But - " George started.

"I only ask for patience Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said. "She will be returned to your care momentarily, but we have something that we need to get out of the way."

They both nodded and I gave them a weak smile that turned into a wince as we walked off into another corridor. When we past by a mirror on the wall, I suddenly realized what they had found to be so frightening. Across the middle of my face there was a large gash that stretched from the right side of my forehead, over top of my eye, down my nose, and finally stopping at the edge of my mouth.

"What happened?" I asked.

"It was Voldemort's work," Dumbledore said darkly. "He seemed to have been trying to rip your body apart when he had control over you."

"I guess that's what he did to my leg too..." I murmured.

"Madam Pomfrey said that it seemed to be a clean break at the knee, so it should be able to heal well," Dumbledore said. "We aren't sure if the mark on your face will be permanent. Only time will tell with that."

I nodded and we remained silent for the remainder of the trip to his office. The thought that we were going to have to repeat everything made me ill and I suddenly wondered if I should have acted like I was unconscious to avoid this, but I couldn't have left Harry alone in this. We only had each other at this point.

We stepped into Dumbledore's office and they helped me sit down before they found seats of their own. Dumbledore sat behind the desk and looked grave as he looked into our eyes. He knew this wasn't going to be easy for us and it pained him to say what he had to, but we all knew that this discussion had to happen.

"I believe that I owe you two an explanation," he sighed miserably. "There is a lot that I haven't told you..."

It wasn't shocking, but I found myself fearing what he was going to say. Whatever it was, I knew that it would change our lives forever.

There would be no going back from this point.

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope you liked it! I'm not going to say a definite day for the next chapter, but I'll tell you all that I plan to have the Order of the Phoenix finished by Saturday. I'm going to be leaving the following day for a week and I'll be out of state, just a forewarning. I will continue the series when I return with The Potter Twins and the Half-Blood Prince. I hope you enjoyed this story so far and I hope that you continue to read it!**

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	50. An Explanation from the Headmaster

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 50**

Having to know that we were going to be reliving the events from that night only made everything more miserable. Dumbledore was going to want to talk about everything and that only made me sick to my stomach. Any time before this, I would have been happy to have had a conversation with Dumbledore, but this was not a good time. I should have just acted like I was dead back at the hospital wing...

"The events that happened today could have been avoided if I had been more open with both of you," Dumbledore said as he looked from one of us to the other. "I should have told you on the night that you saw Arthur Weasley attacked that something like this could have happened."

Nothing that he had said made sense to me, but for some reason I was not able to find the words to ask him any sort of question. My mind had become blank and numb as I thought through everything once more. Sirius was gone...the prophecy had been smashed...everything felt empty...

"When you two came to me on that night, one of my greatest fears was Voldemort knowing about the connection," he said. "I had a feeling that it happened, but I held on to the small amount of doubt that I had until I had a conversation with Sirius about it."

I felt a twitch in my face when his name was mentioned. Sirius's face flashed through my mind again and something pulled at my heart making me want to scream out in pain, but I held it in just like every other emotion that I had at the moment.

"Your godfather told me he had a conversation with Harry about it during the holidays," Dumbledore continued. "He said that you had felt Voldemort awaken in you that night and all of my fears had been confirmed. I feared that he would begin to use this against you, that was why I arranged for the Occlumency lessons to help you protect yourselves."

"They didn't help," Harry said dryly.

"Unfortunately you're right," he replied gravely. "Though it did help to prove Voldemort's plan. Professor Snape informed me that he was constantly seeing the same memory in both of your heads - the one of the Department of Mysteries. This was...rather alarming to say the least. It is easy to say now that this was all part of a plan to get you two as obsessed with this room as he was so you would want to go in there as much as he did."

"I'm happy that his plan worked out for him," I said quietly with a crack in my voice.

Tears started welling up in my eyes and I wiped them away quickly and tried to let out a cough to cover up my cries. I felt so idiotic - like such a fool. I had fallen into Voldemort's trap perfectly just like he had wanted. It was hard to believe that I was the one that felt trapped in his mind when all this time he had been picking through ours and knew everything about us. This could have been prevented if we had just done what Snape had told us.

"It isn't your fault," he said sympathetically. "Like I said, I should have told you about this as soon as I figured this out. It could have prevented this from happening, but I have foolish. I believed that if I distanced myself from you two that Voldemort wouldn't try to do something like this. As you saw tonight, he was attempting to get me to kill both of you - probably assumed that I would think that killing you would kill him as well as long as you were under his possession."

"So I guess that's why he didn't kill Emily..." Harry murmured.

"Exactly," Dumbledore sighed. "He wanted me to do it, but he soon figured out that I would so he attempted to kill you himself, Emily."

"But he didn't," I said bluntly.

"You're right," he said. "Perhaps he was thinking that he would see of I would do something if he turned the focus to another person - maybe that it would frighten me to the point that I wouldn't have any other choice."

"There's something I don't understand," Harry said sounding both hallow and angry. "We went to Grimmauld Place through the fire before we left for the Ministry and Kreacher told us that Sirius wasn't there."

"That was a lie," Dumbledore said simply. "House-elves can lie to the people that aren't their masters and I'm not entirely sure that he even believed that Sirius was his master. You see, his loyalty hasn't been with Sirius for a while now because he had kicked him out of his house during the holidays and Kreacher took this as an opportunity to visit some of his master's family - Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange."

"So he's been serving them?" I asked angrily. "He sent us to the Ministry on purpose because he was on Voldemort's side the whole time."

"He was only that way because he was mistreated by Sirius," Dumbledore said. "Maybe - "

"Don't blame Sirius for this," Harry snarled.

"I'm not," Dumbledore said calmly. "I'm just trying to explain Kreacher's point of view."

"We don't give a damn about Kreacher's point of view," I said coldly. "He's the reason our godfather is dead, in case you've forgotten."

"How long have you known this?" Harry demanded.

"I was told last night," Dumbledore said. "When Professor Snape got your warning about Sirius he immediately tried to contact the Order and found quickly that he was sitting safety in Grimmauld Place - he would have told you this himself if you had returned from the forest with Professor Umbridge."

"Why didn't he give us some sort of hint that he understood us?" Harry asked. "He acted like he had no idea what we were talking about."

"That's because he was already in a position with Umbridge standing in the room," Dumbledore explained. "He didn't want to make anything obvious. He would have met up with afterwards - "

"He was fired," I said bluntly. "He had nothing to risk. He could have helped us or at least communicated with us."

"Why wasn't he out there fighting with us?" Harry asked angrily. "Or did he not want to have to fight his master?"

"He's not a Death Eater, Harry," I said through gritted teeth.

"You were just saying - " Harry started.

"He helped us," I said quickly. "He sent the Order to help us."

"You're right Emily," Dumbledore said. "Snape has earned my trust and I truly believe that he deserves yours. He did everything could do to help last night, and I hope your realize that."

"Then why is Sirius dead?" Harry asked.

"Because Voldemort set everything up perfectly," Dumbledore said. "He made ties with Kreacher and found that Sirius was the only person that both of you would risk your lives for. He made sure that Sirius was going to be out of view and ordered Kreacher to lie to you both to make sure that you would come to the Department of Mysteries. He's bound to have planned this for a long time - that's obvious when you think about the amount of times that you two have been dreaming about that room."

It should have made sense before this, but admitting that Voldemort had made fools out of us wasn't exactly something that I was happy to do. This all made me feel like I was some sort of puppet. We had been manipulated so easily and I was so ashamed of myself. It had always been me that had fought for everyone to trust Snape, but in the end I hadn't even trusted him enough to relay a message. If only I had then this could have all been avoided, but it was far too late for that.

"I think that it's about time that I told you something that you should have known a long time ago," Dumbledore said without meeting our eyes. "I think that we may as well start at the beginning - it always astonishes me that neither of you asked why I set you to live with your Muggle relatives."

"Because no one else wanted us - " Harry scoffed.

"That is not true at all," Dumbledore said with a twitch of a smile. "You would be surprised at the people who would have been thrilled to take you, but I do have my reasoning for leaving you two with your aunt and uncle and it has to do with the one thing that Voldemort has always feared win both of you."

"It has to do with our mother's protection, doesn't it?" Harry asked.

"But what does that have to do with the Dursleys?" I asked irritably. "None of them love us - the exact opposite actually."

"But your mother's blood runs through your aunt," Dumbledore said. "And she was willing to take you in - "

"Willing?" I scoffed so loudly that it irritated the scar that ran down my face. "Is that a joke?"

"She may have been angry in doing so, but she did take you in nonetheless," Dumbledore said. "And by doing that, she provided the protection that you needed from Voldemort."

Never before had I thought of something like that. Aunt Petunia may have treated us horribly for being the offspring of her sister, but she had done her duty in protecting us from the wizarding world. Part of me wondered what it would be like if the circumstances had been different and we had been brought up as pampered little brats that thought too highly of themselves. I cringed at the thought of being anything like Dudley in this world.

"When you both arrived at Hogwarts, I wanted to tell you all everything from the start," Dumbledore continued. "But something held me back. Every single year I became more tempted to explain it all, but I kept telling myself that you two were far too young for this sort of knowledge, even after everything you had been through together. I fear that I can no longer make that excuse - I have withheld this information far too long..."

"Does it have to do with the prophecy?" Harry asked in a hallow voice.

"Yes it does," he said. "And I fear now more than ever that if I would have told you all about it before then this would have never happened. All I can ask is for you both to forgive me..."

"It doesn't matter anyway," I said sounding defeated. "The prophecy was smashed in the Department of Mysteries - we won't know it's contents anyway."

"That was only the record of the prophecy," Dumbledore said. "It was I that heard it in person and was able to put it on record."

"But who made the prophecy?" I asked.

"Have you ever wondered what my reasoning was for appointing Professor Trelawney the position as Divination teacher?" he asked. "It is common knowledge - even to me - that many people here seem to think of this poor woman as more of a joke than anything else, but it's quite the opposite. Most of the time, she may not be the greatest Seer, but she has told one or two prophecies in her day - one of them was the prophecy that was placed in the Department of Mysteries."

"Professor Trelawney?" I asked in disbelief.

"Indeed," Dumbledore nodded.

Without saying what he was doing, Dumbleodre stood up tfrom his desk and walked over towards a cabinet that sat nearby. From it, he pulled out the very familiar looking Pensieve and brought it over to his desk. He pointed his wand to his head and pulled out a silver strand of vapor that was placed into the strange looking liquid. He tapped his wand on the Pensieve and out of it came Professor Trelawney looking misty eyed and lost.

"Those who have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord are approaching..." she said in a voice that hardly seemed like it belonged to her. "Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord shall mark them as his equals...but they shall have power the Dark Lord knows not...and one shall die at the hand of the other for all of them cannot live while the another survives...only one of them with that power will have a stronger will to bring an end to the terror...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

All three of us remained silent as the phantom of Professor Trelawney disappeared back into the Pensieve. So that was it...that was what Voldemort was so desperate to have. What didn't make sense was his reasoning for going after us in the first place - had he known about the prophecy?

"How did he know it was us?" I asked. "Why did he come after us specifically if he had never heard this before?"

"That's just it - he did hear it," Dumbledore said. "But only part of it. I'm certain that he was only aware that there was someone coming to destroy him that would be born at the end of July."

"There is something else that's confusing me," I said. "At the beginning of the prophecy it implied that more than one person would have the power to destroy him, but at the end it only mentioned one."

"You're right," Dumbledore said. "That's something that has been puzzling me for ages."

"So what it's saying is that either Voldemort will die or Emily and I will," Harry said.

"I am afraid so," he said.

"But it only said one of us," I said. "The one with the stronger will - what does that mean, we hate him equally."

"Perhaps it means that one of you will have more of a need to do it yourself," Dumbledore suggested. "Only time can tell."

This frightened me. If this prophecy went as planned, then we had a strong chance of dying at the hand of Voldemort. What I understood from the message was that both of us had the power to kill Voldemort ourselves, but in the end only one of us would be the one to destroy him or we would end up dead.

"Why would he choose us?" I murmured. "We don't have any special powers - are you even sure that the prophecy was talking about us?"

"Well, the funny thing is that it might night have meant either of you," Dumbledore said. "There was one other child born at the end of July that had parents who defied Voldemort three times."

"Who?" Harry and I asked at once.

"Neville Longbottom," he said.

"Neville?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"But that's only one person," I said. "The prophecy said that there would be more than one."

"It said that there were others that were capable, but only one that would finish him in the end," he said. "And you two are forgetting the most important part - he made you two his equals on the night that he killed your parents."

"But what if it was really Neville - " Harry started.

"It can't be Harry," I murmured. "Voldemort chose us...it's final..."

It was all hitting me like a weight - this was really happening. Learning all of this information on top of just losing our godfather made me feel like I was going to collapse on the ground from the pressure of it all. We were going to have to face Voldemort in the end with a high risk of being killed. There may be two of us, but we were no match for someone that had killed so many people in his time - we were just another two people standing in his way of taking over.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"Well, for starters both of you need to get some rest," Dumbledore said. "You've been through a lot tonight and I'm pretty sure Madam Pomfrey is going to come scratching at the door if I don't return both of you soon."

"What about you?" Harry asked. "Are you staying?"

"I believe so," Dumbledore smirked as he stood up from his desk. "The Minister realized that it was his mistake after all when he saw Voldemort himself - though I couldn't help but feel that it took a lot of pride from him to admit to his mistake."

"He saw Voldemort?" I asked in surprise.

"He did," Dumbledore said. "I suppose that you were no longer conscious when he arrived, but he seemed to be rather baffled by his presence."

Harry stood up and held out his hand to help me stand up. I grabbed into him while Dumbledore balanced me from my other side. I grimaced from the short amount of time that I had pressure on my leg, but soon enough we were inching our way out of the room.

"I do ask that you both try to sleep when we get to the hospital wing," Dumbledore said. "I'll have your visitors leave you alone - I'm sure they'll understand."

"Good luck with that," I muttered.

It took us a while, but we finally managed to get back to the hospital wing where I found George, Fred, Snape, Lupin, Tonks, Moody, and Neville all waiting. Luna, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all lying in beds looking like they were fast asleep.

George nearly jumped out of his shoes when he saw me and immediately raced over to me. Dumbledore held up his hand and I smiled weakly as Harry and Dumbledore lowered me down onto a bed that was sitting next to Hermione's.

"Are they all okay?" Harry asked.

"They're fine thanks to Madam Pomfrey," Neville said. "I don't think that they'll be waking up for a long time with the stuff she gave them."

Harry stepped over and sat on the bed on the other side of me and looked at the floor with a pained expression. We could try to hide it as much as we wanted, but it was hard to not feel the pain of everything we had lost today. I looked around at all of the people around us and was trying to make myself happy that we still had them to support us with everything we do, but all I could find myself thinking was that there was one person missing.

"Oh - you're back!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed when she saw us lying in the beds as she came out of her office.

She rushed over towards a cabinet filled with all different sorts of potions and picked up the familiar vial of Dreamless Sleep - something that I was looking forward to. As she walked over towards Harry and me, George took his spot next to me and held onto my hand and gave me a weak smile. I tried to return the favor, but I couldn't bring myself to even fake happiness at this point.

As Madam Pomfrey gave some of the potion to Harry, I looked up at Snape who was standing in the front of the crowd that surrounded my brother and me. For the first time in a while, I found myself able to read his expression. He looked frightened and saddened as he looked from my brother to me. It wasn't something I was used to seeing and I felt a tug at my heart knowing that I was probably the cause of this.

"Here you go," Madam Pomfrey said as she handed over the vial to me. "Drink up - your wounds will heal faster while you sleep."

"Thank you," I said in almost a whisper.

I took a large gulp from the vial and then looked down at the hand that was holding George's as he squeezed it. I looked around at everyone one last time before I drifted off into the nothingness that could only temporarily mask my pain.

...

When I woke up hours later the sun was setting for the day. I found that most of the people that had been in the room were now lying asleep in their own hospital beds or had already left the room. George was still loosely holding onto my hand with his head lying on my bed and was completely out of it. Tonks was the only one that seemed to be awake in the room other than myself and she gave me a weak smile as she met my eyes.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

I shrugged gently and started to moved my leg around. It was still sore from where it had broken, but it seemed to have healed enough for me to not scream out in pain whenever the bone moved.

"It's a shame about that scar," Tonks said as she moved a strand of hair from my face and sat down on my bed next to me. "Remus told me that he had given you a scar about two years ago that had nearly just cleared itself up."

"I nearly forgot about that one..." I murmured. "I guess I just got so used to seeing it."

"Well, he certainly hasn't let it slip his mind," Tonks sighed. "He never lets anything like that fade away."

"I wish he would," I said. "I don't blame him for it - it wasn't his fault."

She nodded and then I turned my attention over to Harry who seemed to be peacefully asleep. The lines of pain on his face seemed to have gone away enough for me to see the small scratches that had been left on his face from the Department of Mysteries. Part of me wondered what had gotten them there, but most of all I was upset that Harry had gotten hurt in the first place.

"You two were brilliant yesterday," Tonks said. "Not many your age could be as brave as you."

"I don't know if I'd call it bravery," I muttered.

"Stop blaming yourself for this," Tonks said seriously. "You're acting like Remus - never able to forgive himself, that one..."

"How are the others?" I asked quickly wanting to change the subject.

"They're...getting through it," Tonks sighed. "It's really hard to say with them because they don't really want to talk about it. Moody's doing his best to cheer everyone up - he's seen death the most, so it's easier for him to cope with it. Dumbledore hasn't said much on the subject because he's been to busy dealing with the Ministry and helping get everything back in order. The only person I'm really surprised with is Snape."

"Snape?" I asked. "Why?"

"He doesn't seem to be his usual self," she said. "You know - dark and emotionless. Something seems to be bothering him...I don't know, maybe I'm imagining it..."

Something was bothering him, but I knew that it didn't have to do with Sirius. Maybe it had something to do with what Dumbledore had said to us or maybe it was that Voldemort's return was now public. A small part of me wondered if it had to do with him not participating in the fight at the Ministry - could that be bothering him?

"He was the one that made the call to the Order, wasn't he?" I asked her after a moment.

"He was," she nodded. "It's a good thing that he did too - I knew that there was something wrong and I was about to contact him myself."

"How did you know?" I asked.

"The necklace," she said as she tugged on an exact replica of the one that I had on me that was sitting around her neck. "It was burning like mad all night - driving me crazy to be honest. It didn't bother me much at first because the thing had been acting rather strange all year with randomly going off and whatnot. I contacted Snape nearly every time, but he said that it must have been a wild thought or just a change of emotion that had set it off."

I grabbed onto the diamond necklace that was around my neck and looked at it. It wasn't the same as it had been when I had seen it for the first time. For some reason, it seemed to have a red tint to it that didn't look like it was going to go away. Tonks was the same color, but I didn't understand completely what this meant.

"It's been this way since last night," she said. "It had been going off and on for a while, but now it seems to be stuck like this."

"Since last night?" I asked.

"Well, it was more like this morning I suppose," she said. "Right about the time you went to talk to Dumbledore actually."

I nodded, but mind was taken back to the time when Hermione told me about the necklace when I first got it. The diamond turned different colors based on the well-being of one of the people wearing it, in this case it would be me. She had told me that when the diamond becomes red it meant that one of us was in terrible danger. My heart sank when I thought of when Tonks had said it turned like this - when Dumbledore was telling us that we were going to have to fight Voldemort in the end and that there was a possibility that we could die. Did this mean that we were destined to die?

Just then Madam Pomfrey walked out of her office and noticed that I was awake. She practically shooed Tonks away and reached for the vial of Dreamless Sleep.

"She needs her rest or she won't get better - how many times must I say this?" she said irritably. "You'll have plenty of time to talk once she's healthy."

She then thrusted the potion into my hands where I took it out of fear that she might hit me in the head if I didn't. I took a gulp of it and set it back on the table next to me and looked back up at my godmother.

"Sleep well," she said.

I was about to say something, but I found myself at a loss for words as the darkness overtook me once more and I found myself floating effortlessly throughout a dark abyss.

...

**Thanks for reading - I hope you liked it! I plan to have the next and FINAL chapter up either late Saturday or early Sunday before I leave home. After that, I'll be gone for about a week - once I'm back I'll start the next story in the series. Thanks again for reading and just tell me if I have any grammatical mistakes that need to be corrected in a review!**

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	51. Fearing What Lies Ahead

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

**Chapter 51**

It wasn't until Sunday evening that Madam Pomfrey finally began to ease up on us. The majority of us had healed up very nicely and we were all capable of moving without having too many potions in our system aside from Hermione who was having to take ten potions a day to battle the curse that was set on her.

The only person that didn't seem to be doing any better was Dolores Umbridge. She had joined the hospital wing not long after we did, but her condition seemed to have been a lot different than ours. Rather than a physical injury, she seemed to be suffering a new bout of paranoia that must have come on during stay in the Forbidden Forest with the centaurs. Every move anyone made seemed to rattle her bones to the core and she would suddenly begin to jerk her head around looking for a nonexistent attacker in the room. If it hadn't been for being the cruel woman I knew her to be, I might have even felt bad for her - but she deserved everything she got.

"So I guess that's it," Hermione said suddenly as she set down today's Sunday Prophet on her bedside table. "Everyone knows that he's back - the Minister made it official."

"Is it all in there?" I asked.

"His entire statement - care to read it?" she asked as she grabbed the newspaper up again and held it out to me.

"I'd rather not," I said honestly. "It's not like we don't already know the truth anyway."

"I guess that it's just interesting having him admit that he was wrong after all of the trouble he went through trying to deny the truth," Hermione said.

Madam Pomfrey walked out of her office with another potion for Hermione. She quickly drank it up and handed it back to the nurse with a smile of gratitude. Once she was gone, I stretched my legs out and started to move my leg around some more. The soreness, for the most part, had vanished from the area. There were still large red marks around there, but it seemed to me like it would all appear to be normal within another day or so. As for my newest wound on my face, it was still hard to tell what would become of that. It still remained there as of now, but it looked as though it wasn't nearly as deep or bloody as it had been when I had first gotten it. Madam Pomfrey seems to feel that it'll make it to be the third scar on my face - though the second one that I received from Lupin seemed to have been covered up by the one that I have now while the rest of it faded away quite significantly.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked me as he sat upright in his bed.

"I'm not going anywhere right now," I said. "I just need to move around a bit so I don't get permanently stuck to this bed."

I stepped out of my bed and started walking around with a slight limp, but managed to walk it off without all that much effort. I stepped by Umbridge's bed and I heard her mumbling something to herself as her eyes shifted nervously over toward me as I looked out of the window. If this would have been under normal circumstances, I probably would have found joy in tormenting her, but I just wasn't feeling up to it right now. Besides, I was pretty sure that Ron had that covered anyway.

"I see that Hagrid's back," I said as I watched him walk towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"He came up here yesterday," Neville said. "You two were asleep though - he said that you all could come by his hut when you're up to it. He said that he was really busy with something."

Harry and I looked at each other nervously. The others might not have completely caught on at the moment, but we knew for sure that he was searching for his brother. Though I'm not entirely sure how Neville and Hermione had forgotten - it's surely not anything that I'll ever get out of my mind.

"Where are Fred and George?" I asked as I walked back toward everyone else. "They were here earlier, weren't they?"

"Yeah, but Professor Flitwick came by and asked them if they could help get rid of some of the mess they left behind," Ginny said. "I personally believe that he just wanted to congratulate them in private for ruining Umbridge's life here. I went by where the swamp had been earlier and it seems to all be cleared up besides this one little spot - I'm convinced that they're leaving that there as some sort of reminder."

"I'm sure that they're very proud," I said with a hint of a smile.

"My ears are ringing!"

I smiled and turned around to see Fred and George walking in the room with the biggest smirks on their faces. They seemed to become even happier when they looked over at Umbridge who was practically twitching from the sound of them walking into the room.

"Watch this," Fred smirked.

Suddenly he began to making clicking noises with his tongue that sounding remarkably similar to the sound of the horses running around. When he did, Umbridge nearly jumped out of her skin and started hyperventilating. Everyone started to laugh, but we stopped as soon as Madam Pomfrey raced into the room to help her frightened patient.

"So I saw your story in the paper," Fred said to Harry and me. "I can't believe they are actually saying decent things - I'm so used to hearing insults."

"Yeah, we're really going to miss those," I said sarcastically.

"They actually were pretty funny," said George. "You know, from the perspective that we knew that every word they printed was wrong - they were getting pretty creative with their lies."

"They were," Harry agreed. "I guess I could give them that if nothing else. Their lies were getting more ridiculous by the issue."

"At least they decided to stop calling me a slut," I muttered. "That one was starting to get old."

"I don't know…" George said with a smirk. "I kind of liked the idea."

Harry threw him the meanest look and both Fred and George busted out laughing. Hermione, who had been looking through the paper again, looked at him with her jaw nearly hitting the floor. Ron and Neville both were looking from Harry to George as if they expected some sort of fight to break out.

"You know those rumors were horrible," Hermione said. "And they were saying that she was sleeping around with other guys George!"

"I know, I know," he said through his laughter. "I just wanted to see the look on Harry's face."

"You're hilarious," Harry said with a straight face.

"Oh, come on," George said. "I'm just messing with you."

"Yeah, yeah," Harry muttered with a small hint of a grin on his face.

Hermione quickly walked over to Harry with the paper and tried to change the subject so he would get his mind off choking the life out of my boyfriend. All the while, George walked over and sat next to me on my bed and took a hold of my hand.

"How are you feeling - any better?" he asked me on a more serious note.

"The bone is all healed up I suppose," I said. "And my face stopped throbbing, so I guess that's a good sign."

He nodded and put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed onto me with a small smile on his face.

"It'll get better," he said. "I'm sure he's having a blast wherever he his."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Maybe him and Dad already met up…I'm sure he'll like that…"

I looked down at our hands and could feel the tears forming already. I did everything I could to prevent them from coming out of my eyes, and George only held onto me tighter. Just his mere presence made me feel better, but it still couldn't fill the hole that I was missing in my heart. Holding back tears, I put my arms around George and pulled him into a hug. He held onto me tightly and let out a sigh.

"I love you," I said quietly.

"I love you too," he whispered back.

He pulled out of my hug and wiped a tear from my eye and gave me a soft kiss on the lips before leaning back against the headboard of the bed with me lying against his chest. Even though I had been sleeping for so long, I suddenly felt the need to sleep once more. Nothing soothed pain better than letting it all fall out of place for just a few hours of rest.

* * *

When I woke up again it was really dark outside. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I was guessing that it was the early hours of the morning judging by the fact that everyone in the room - including Madam Pomfrey - was fast asleep. Feeling as though my legs were beginning to ache from lack of use, I decided to take advantage of this opportunity and take a little walk around the castle for old times sake. It would be nice to give my legs a proper stretching before the morning.

As quietly as I could, I slipped out of bed without waking George and grabbed onto my cloak and my wand as I tip-toed out of the room. I closed the door slowly and made sure that there wasn't a sound on the other end before I left the corridor. Once I was in the clear, I began to slow my pace down.

As I passed by the portraits, I began to hear the familiar sound of the people in them complaining about waking them and it actually made me happy to hear their insults towards me. Maybe it was because it was the most normal thing that I had heard for the past few days or maybe it was just because I was just going insane. Who knows really?

I stepped through the corridors and found myself walking blindly in thought and when I stopped, my heart sank when I realized where I had taken myself. It was the corridor where I had first met with Sirius. Of course, it wasn't he Sirius that I had become familiar with, but it was the first time that I had ever come in contact with him according to my knowledge.

The memory flashed through my head and I felt like I was living it all over again. It was in my third year that I had been walking through here when I saw a dog walking alone in the courtyard. It looked hungry and saddened and I couldn't help but feel the greatest sympathy for the dog. Without hardly thinking about how strange it had been, I had been willing to feed and water him from the moment that I set my eyes on him. It had been like that for as long as I could remember - we had always been willing to help each other when we needed it and we were always there for each other from that moment on. It was hard to believe that it had only been two years ago since that moment because it seemed like it had just happened yesterday.

When I blinked and came back to reality, I wiped a few tears from my face that had managed to escape while I was thinking back in time. All I wanted to do was return to that moment. Things were so much simpler, so much nicer. I had taken all the moments that I had spent with him for granted - always assuming that there would be more. Now all I could do was think back to the times that we had and hope that I would be able to move on without him.

"Only time will help heal this injury."

I didn't need to glance over to know that it was Snape that was talking to me. The all too familiar voice of his and the fact that he had caught up with me in the dead of night. It was something else that felt so familiar, but so different all at once. It was incredible how I felt like a completely different person in a situation that had happened so many times before.

"But it'll never be the same," I said quietly.

"It won't," he said. "But you'll learn to adjust. Trust me."

"How do you deal with it?" I asked. "Just go on in life like it never happened and try to act like everything is okay...I just don't know if I can do that."

"You cannot act like it never happened," he said. "You have to face the reality of what happened and help it to make you stronger."

"It should have never happened," I said. "He shouldn't have died - he had no reason to. It wasn't his battle to fight - it should have been me instead - "

"Don't say that Emily," Snape said. "You have your entire life ahead of you and so much more that you can accomplish."

"I know that I still have a lot to live for," I said softly. "But that's just the thing - maybe I don't want to go through the things that I'm destined for. I'm just...scared...it just would have been easier if Sirius was still here to help me through this..."

I felt like a child, but it was all true. I was terrified of what Dumbledore said that we had in store for us and I knew that this wasn't only going to effect us. There were others that would step in the path of Voldemort and be killed just like Sirius had been. He wasn't the first and he surely wouldn't be the last.

"I'm just afraid that I'm going to lose everyone during all of this," I said helplessly. "And I just don't think I can handle all of that..."

"You'll have people here to help you," Snape said without looking me in the eye. "You won't go through this alone."

I nodded and looked down at my hands and sighed. There wasn't much point in moping around with all of this - I needed to try to stay strong for Harry. There was no way that I was going to leave him to face all of this alone.

"Promise me that you won't get hurt because of me," I said quietly.

"That's not something that I can promise," he said slowly.

"I can't lose you," I said without meeting his eyes. "I don't know if I could go on without you...I've already lost my actual father...I just don't know if I could go through that again..."

He remained silent for a moment and I refused to look at him. Just imagining life without him in it was difficult enough for me. Even though I knew it would upset Harry, I knew in my heart that I had always viewed Snape as a father figure. He could never replace James, but I had never actually known him as a person and I just needed someone to be there for me like Snape had been - he had taken on the father role without even being asked and I don't know if I could ever repay him for that.

"I'll try," he murmured. "But I can't promise you anything..."

I nodded and wiped my eye again. It was incredible to believe that I wasn't usually such an emotional person before this. I think that I had cried more in the past week than I had in the rest of my life. Losing people wasn't something that I was good at and neither was facing the reality of knowing that there would only be more to lose from this point.

"You should go to bed," Snape said. "It could help you know?"

"I already have," I sighed. "I feel like that's all I've been doing lately…I can't just let that take over my life. I suppose that it's about time that I wake up and face my problems…they won't go away over night anyway."

"You're right, but you are still healing," Snape said.

"I'm fine," I said. "My leg is working fine anyway - the only problem I have now is this awful scar on my face."

All of a sudden, I noticed a slight twitch in Snape's face and, for only a moment, I saw an expression that could only be described as rage.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, suddenly worried that there was something wrong.

"Dumbledore told me what happened last night," he said without actually answering the question. "How the Dark Lord got into your mind and did this to you."

He motioned towards my face and I suddenly felt ashamed. I knew exactly where this was going.

"I'm sorry…" I said. "It was my fault - I should have closed my mind like you told me to."

"It's difficult, I realize this, but I really wish that you would try harder to do this," he said without looking me in the eye. "I'm not blaming you for the events that took place the other night - Occlumency isn't something that you can learn in a day and you weren't prepared for a full on attack like that. I should have known that something like this was going to happen - I shouldn't have ever stopped - "

"You aren't blaming yourself for this, are you?" I asked in surprise.

"This is my fault," Snape said bluntly. "If I had accomplished what Dumbledore asked me to do then I could have prevented it."

"It isn't your fault Severus," I said. "None of this is - it's all on us. We are the ones that refused to shut our minds and we got fooled by Voldemort. Please do not blame yourself."

"But I - " he started.

"Enough," I said bluntly. "If you're just going to keep talking like this then I am going to go to bed."

"You should be in bed anyway," he said. "Poppy would be upset if she knew that you were wandering around when you haven't finished healing."

"Since when have I ever completely followed the rules?" I asked.

"You have a point…" he murmured. "And I suppose that I should be enforcing them a little better."

"Probably," I agreed. "But we both know that that's not going to happen."

"Go back to the hospital wing Emily," he said sternly. "Or I'll take points from Gryffindor."

"Oh, like you wouldn't find some excuse to take points away from us anyway," I muttered.

"I don't - " he started.

"Yes you do," I said. "I must not tell lies."

I pointed to my hand and his eyes suddenly darkened.

"That's not even funny," he said.

"It would be if you saw her now," I said. "She's more jumpy than Quirrell was."

"Dumbledore had to go through a lot to get her back," Snape said.

"He should have just left her there," I muttered.

"Funny, I was just about to say the same thing," he said with a small smirk.

After he escorted me back to the hospital wing, I gave him a quick hug goodnight and I could still see the pain in his eyes that I had before. Part of me wondered if it had anything to do with what we had talked about with Sirius or if it had to do with the prophecy. He didn't actually say it, but I could say with full confidence that he had known all about what it had said. Was he worried that we wouldn't make it through as well or was there something else on his mind?

I guess that I would never figure that out…

* * *

The final day of school came by extraordinarily quickly. Everyone had gotten better before the end of it all and we were once again allowed around our peers. At first we got funny looks like we had on our very first day of school in first year, but eventually we stopped noticing it and just went on with our day. Although we seemed to be the talk of the school, I couldn't help but feel that we were being avoided. Everyone seemed to be afraid of us to some extent and it made me feel uneasy. Maybe it had to do with the fact that we had been considered lunatics all year up until Fudge admitted that he was wrong.

Fred and George left Hogwarts only a couple of days ago so they could go back to their joke shop. Business was booming there and they seemed to be having a lot of fun with it and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley didn't seem to have all that much objection to it either. Before they left, George was convinced that he was just going to stick back with me, but I insisted that he went and he eventually decided to listen to me. All I wanted was for him to be happy and I had a feeling that I was bringing him down a bit and I didn't want that. I knew that he cared and that was good enough for me.

The ride back was a little quieter than usual, but I was quick to make conversation whenever I started to feel like I was going to lose my mind again. We all kept each other happy enough until we finally arrived at Kings Cross station once more.

"I can't believe it's already ended," Ginny said. "I felt like it just started yesterday!"

"I know, it felt like it was just yesterday that you were swooning all over Michael Corner," Ron said in disgust. "I'm just happy that you finally got rid of him."

"What happened between you two?" I asked as I grabbed my luggage.

"He was all whiny when we beat him during a Quidditch match," she shrugged. "He wasn't really my type anyway."

"Maybe you'll find someone better next time," I said while eyeing Harry carefully. "Someone a little more you're type."

"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?" Hermione laughed.

"I can't date your brother," Ginny said so only I could here.

"Why not?" I asked, slightly offended.

"Because I'm already dating someone else," she said.

"Wait - what?" Harry said as he suddenly dropped one of the cases loudly on the ground.

"Who?" Ron asked as his ears went red.

"Dean Thomas, is that okay with you?" she asked with a smirk on her face.

"No - that is not okay," Ron said. "I dorm with the man - I know what kind of guy he is."

"I don't need your permission!" Ginny said irritably as she snatched her luggage from Ron. "You aren't my father!"

They started bickering again and Harry and I just rolled her eyes while Hermione started to chuckle.

"Just when you think everything's changed," I said with a smile.

"It's nice to know that some things will always stay the same," Harry said.

Once we all had our things, we started to make our way to the exit after we said our goodbyes to everyone. It only took us a moment to find the Guard waiting for us just where I thought they would be. Next to them I found Mrs. Longbottom waiting expectantly and I raised my eyebrow when she looked at me.

"Have you seen my grandson?" she asked.

"Er…" I said while looking behind me. "Oh - there he is. I think that his plant exploded again…"

Sure enough, I saw the nasty, stinky goop all over Luna and a man who appeared to be her father next to her. For a moment, I expected them to be angry with him, but then I remembered they were the Lovegoods. In other words, they weren't the usual type of family which meant that these sort of things probably would come as more fascinating than anything else. Neville looked sheepishly up at me from where he stood and I just gave him a smile and a wave.

"Oh dear," she said. "I suppose that I should help him, shouldn't I?"

"I think he knows how to get rid of it anyway," I shrugged. "Have a good summer!"

I hardly finished the sentence before she walked away from us and then I returned my attention back to the Guard that was standing with us. There was Mad-Eye, Tonks, Lupin, and Mr. Weasley all standing with smiles on their faces as they waited for us.

"How are you doing kid?" Moody asked as he tipped the hat on his head that was covering his magic eye.

"I've been better, but I've also been worse," I said while nodding my head. "So I guess I'll be okay."

"Well, we're going to try and make things a little better for you," he said with a slight growl.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

Tonks just winked at us as we began to walk behind Moody and the others towards the exit. We walked through the wall and out of Platform 9 ¾ until we found ourselves on the Muggle side and quickly located the Dursley standing at the exit looking as irritable as usual. Suddenly I began to feel nervous as the Guard approached them.

"Who are you?" Uncle Vernon asked suddenly.

"Well hello to you too," I muttered.

Aunt Petunia threw me an angry look, but I just ignored it as I usually did and that's when I noticed Dudley standing off to the side looking over at us sheepishly. What was his problem?

"So here's the deal," Tonks said to Uncle Vernon. "We heard that you all have been giving these two a bit of trouble."

"You all really don't have to - " I started.

"No, we really do," Tonks said. "Trust me on this one."

"Listen up Dursley," Moody growled. "If we hear that you are giving these two any sort of trouble, then you'll have us to answer to, is that clear?"

"Are you threatening me?" Uncle Vernon asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes sir, I do believe he is," Mr. Weasley said proudly.

"And don't think that you can get around this by blocking his mail either," Lupin said. "If we don't get any sort of letter from these two within a three day period then you better expect us to be at your doorstep, understand?"

"Your type doesn't scare me," Uncle Vernon said trying to sound tough. "I've dealt with bigger men than you, so don't think you can just walk all over me and tell me what to do."

"Funny he says that now," Harry muttered to me. "He didn't seem so tough when Hagrid came to get us before first year."

"I don't scare you, eh?" Moody said.

Suddenly he pushed up the hat that had been covering his eye and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia jumped back and let out a yelp as the eye flew around in its socket.

"That's what I thought," Moody smirked. "You two have a good summer now."

The Dursleys didn't stop for a moment to say goodbye and they had already reached the car before we had even stepped through the final exit. With one quick wave back at everyone that was still in there, we found that our fifth year had finally ended.

When we arrived at the school in the beginning of the year, we were seen as the lying twins that were constantly seeking attention and now we were looked at as heroes. So much had changed in such a little period of time - it was hard to believe that it had only been one school year.

As we pulled off in the Dursley's car, I took one final look back at the station and let out a sigh. Even through all of the hell that I had gone through this year with Harry, I longed for the day that we would return here for our sixth year.

Until then, all I could do was dream of roaming through the halls, breaking all the rules, and having the time of my life with the people that I loved more than anything in the world.

Hogwarts was my home and I don't think that I could have asked for a better one. All I could hope for now was that my sixth year would be better to me than my fifth one.

Nothing could be worse than what I had to go through this year…right?

* * *

**Thanks for reading - I hope that you enjoyed the final chapter of this book! As I have already said, I do plan on continuing on to **_**The Potter Twins and the Half-Blood Prince**_** and I hope that you'll enjoy that one as well. I am going to be out of state for this upcoming week, so you could expect the first chapter of the sixth book to be up around Christmas - possibly before, more likely afterwards.**

**So, until then - happy holidays (whatever it is that you do or do not celebrate). I hope to hear from you again soon!**

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**ShannenWrites (Twitter)**

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**- GryffindorGirl347**


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